Letter from a "Homeboy"

My eldest daughter has a "Mary is My Home Girl" t-shirt.

When she told me about it, I questioned the propriety.

But, in thinking it over, I realized it's no different than singing "What a friend we have in Jesus." Homeboy/homegirl is just a currently popular way of saying "good and valued friend."

And, I know my daughter. She is a serious Christian and has a real devotion to the Mother of God. She is part of a great fulfillment of St. Gabriel's prophecy that all generations would call St. Mary the Virgin blessed.

When such t-shirts are worn for secular or profane reasons, they give those of us who are Christians a great opening to share our Faith. When those of us who Christians wear such shirts, they give others an opening to allow us to give an account of our Faith.

Though the phraseology is not what I would have chosen, I see no problem with the thought.

I am far less concerned about kids' t-shirts than I am about the myriad "Christian leaders" who have deconstructed and continue to deconstruct Christ's Holy Faith.

By the way, I think your youth minister has the right idea--de-emphasizing "youth" and emphasizing the Christian life of the parish at large. That, historically, has been the Catholic way, which is why Catholics today are so bad at "youth ministry," which, is essentially a protestant invention.

Be warned, though, that unless your parents are the types that will require their older children to attend church even when they don't want to, that those youth may be siphoned off into "good" youth groups that go bowling a lot. Growing up, I saw many Methodist kids go to the Baptist Training Union for that reason, and, today, I see many Catholic kids uninvolved because their parents don't want to make decisions for them.

There are no youth groups in the New Testament that I can find. Otherwise, that kid in Acts would have been playing paintball instead of falling asleep and out the window during St. Paul's long-winded, and, in all probability, somewhat tiresome, sermon that hot summer night.

Your homeboy,
jtmc

We need some more William Booths today!

In my church we are preaching our way through James. The brother of Jesus didn't cut much slack for those into "easy believism." Do something about it - about your faith! Do something!

William Booth picked up his mantle, apparently. Read this passage...but be sure to check out the whole article:

You must do it! You cannot hold back. You have enjoyed yourself in Christianity long enough. You have had pleasant feelings, pleasant songs, pleasant meetings, pleasant prospects. There has been much of human happiness, much clapping of hands and shouting of praises- very much of heaven on earth.

Now then, go to God and tell Him you are prepared as much as necessary to turn your back upon it all, and that you are willing to spend the rest of your days struggling in the midst of these perishing multitudes, whatever it may cost you.

You must do it. With the light that is now broken in upon your mind and the call that is now sounding in your ears, and the beckoning hands that are now before your eyes, you have no alternative. To go down among the perishing crowds is your duty. Your happiness from now on will consist in sharing their misery, your ease in sharing their pain, your crown in helping them to bear their cross, and your heaven in going into the very jaws of hell to rescue them.

On preaching Jesus as cool...

"In the beginning," writes Jenee Osterheld of the The Kansas City Star "Jesus was an outcast, misunderstood and punished for it. Those days are over."

"Walk through any mall, flip on the television or turn on your radio, and you'll see that Jesus is cool.....Jesus is becoming a pop-culture icon and inspiring mainstream movies, music and, most noticeably, fashion. He is on T-shirts, messenger bags, wristbands, license plates, notebooks, stickers, bobbleheads and even ashtrays."

Problematic? I think you can go too far with Neil Postman's perspective, but there is enough truth here to think about. His book was about television.

"The executive director of the National Religious Broadcasters Association sums up what he calls the unwritten law of all television preachers: 'You can get your share of the audience only by offering people something they want.'

"You will note, I am sure, that this is an unusual religious credo. There is no great religious leader - from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther - who offered people what they want. Only what they need. But television is not well suited to offering people what they need. It is 'user friendly.' It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex language or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. Their featured players become celebrities. Though their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings, or rather, because their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings.

"I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether." (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Viking, pg. 121)

And so? Well, frankly, I have found that when speaking to youth, for instance, they are able to see through this "Jesus is cool" thing sooner, certainly later. When I have preached the cross, the challenge, the denial, the willingness to go anywhere, do anything, give everything - they respond. And their response sticks. My "Jesus is cool" messages rarely helped them to "stick."

My youth pastor came up to me the other day and quoted Mike Yaconelli. He said that the creator of Youth Specialities (the premier youth organization in the country) was preaching at YS events late in his life concerning the utter failure of the typical youth approach. Making Jesus user-friendly with professional workers, better games, sleeker technology and more kids involved than ever before wasn't working. Repeat - wasn't working! Their values were no different than the values of pagan kids, and most of them didn't stick with the commitments their youth directors thought they possessed.

We needed a new model, Yaconelli confessed.

So Jon, our youth guy, says this is the program from now on: Youth will no longer meet together on Sunday evenings like we have been. From now on they meet with adult groups on Sunday evening. Twice a month they will get together in groups of 2-3 with an adult to eat, go over a Bible study and go serve the poor or aged in our community. Once a month, for a big fun event, one of our adult groups will sponsor that good time and show up to have it with them.

But the emphasis for our youth is no longer on "cool" or spending an inordinate amount of church time with each other. The emphasis now is on Bible study, service, accountability, and very limited "cool good times." All of this, with mature Christians.

Now I don't know if this will solve a single "cool" problem or not. But it is a step in the right direction, we feel.

Because cool is not a biblical word. Holy, is.

The Un-evangelizers

THE 45 ANGLICAN and Protestant chaplains ministering in the Olympic village in Athens have signed an agreement saying that they will not proselytise.

Talking to people about Jesus - an Olympic sin. Go figure. And this is the same Olympics that has ensured that condoms/lubricants are handed out aplenty, steroids are apparently rampant and some judges, well, have been accused of crookedness.

Question: Would you sign an agreement not to evangelize?

Another question: Has American Christianity - or at least a vast segment of it - already signed such a proverbial agreement in their own hearts and minds. Afterall - we might offend...

In, then out, of ministry...Why?

The Great Commission depends upon evangelists and pastors getting in the ministry and staying there for a lifetime of service come hell or high water. That is not, unfortunately, what is happening. This article from the Baptist Press:

Citing a statistic from LifeWay President Jimmy Draper, Don Whitney of Midwestern Seminary said that for every 20 men who enter the ministry -- by the time those men reach retirement age -- only one will still be in the ministry.

Among those who remain in the ministry are many who have been ruined in other ways, Whitney added. Their decreased effectiveness may result from a variety of failures, including:
Money: "They make far too many choices based upon getting more money, or else they smolder in their attitude toward the church because they don't get paid enough."

Sex: Whitney cited a 1995 study that revealed that 25 to 35 percent of ministers are involved in inappropriate sexual behavior at some level.

Power: "They become authoritarian with people," Whitney said. "Perhaps they got that way because they were so faithful in one place of ministry for so long and the sin came upon them gradually. Or maybe they discovered that they enjoyed denominational work, but after awhile they began serving their own political appetites more than Christ. To pull strings was more satisfying than to preach sermons. To get in the inner circle of the right people, to be able to place others in and keep others out of influential positions, to be among the first to get the inside information became 'the ministry' to them."

Pride: "The greater the influence God gives them, the greater they become in their own sight, and the more they believe they deserve the influence."

Cynicism: "When you deal week in and week out with people who claim to be Christians but often don't act like it, when those who are supposed to be God's people talk about you and treat you worse than those in the world do, when you've ministered for years and you see little apparent fruit in the lives of those you've given your life for, it's easy to become cynical," Whitney said.

Success: Whitney described those who succumb to success as CEOs, not shepherds; managers, not ministers. "Their model is business, with its emphasis on numbers, units, products, marketing and customers, rather than a family with its emphasis on love, relationships, new births and maturity, or a farm with its emphasis on sheep, fruit and growing things."

Antidotes?

• Daily time in prayer and in the Word. At least an hour. And don't just go through the motions...experience God.
  
• Accountability - get together regularly with someone who, at once, can hold your spiritual feet to the proverbial fire and refresh you.
  
• Constant ethical alignment - Read that Bible, and do it. Don't think that "equipping" your people and preaching/teaching is enough...Jesus wants you to do it!
  
• Fall in love...with your wife and friends. Over and over and over again...
  
• Ask God to renew that evangelistic vigor in you. There is nothing so invigorating or God-pleasing as leading someone to a relationship with the Lord.

Weapon, anyone?

Should Christians carry guns? a recent headline blared from an internet website. I have my own opinion about that, as do others. In the Deep South, guns are a major component of the cultural milieu. Indeed, the most callers I ever generated on a talk radio show dealt with the kind of gun a rookie at weaponry should buy for home protection. I witnessed two solid hours of six phone calls waiting to get on the program.

But Christians? And guns? The Bible says the preferred technology of personal and corporate defense is...a sword. "Take the...sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

Evangelism in America is weak, scholars suppose, because of a lack of this, an apathy for that, a cluelessness about culture, a disconcerting orientation to old methodology, etc.

But the real reason evangelism is losing ground and Protestantism has, in this country, reached a minority status is that we don't know the Word, don't pray through it, and don't act on it.

In brief, E. Stanley Jones (the great India missionary) says that were he to put his finger on the greatest flaw of this nation's lackluster performance in missional endeavor he would be pointing at our lack of a devotional commitment. And to Jones, that commitment was prayer, Scripture and arising to be on with the things we are being told by God to do during those intense times with God.

Jones confesses that the greatest thing he ever did in his college days was to establish a two hour a day devotional habit. It sustained him through a lifelong endeavor to spread the Good News. Most laity today prayer a few brief moments. Ministers - a few (but very few) minutes more.

In my classes at Wesley Biblical Seminary we require an hour a day prayer life. Some students, upon hearing this, flinch and even complain. But here are some of the comments I began to receive from this requirement:

“Absolutely, positively the most beneficial part of the class…it affected every part of my life and deepened my walk.” (TG)

“This requirement erupted my devotional life! I went from one hour to three. Incredible grace!” (BS)

“Initially I was afraid of my prayer life affecting my grade. But then I thought ‘Does it not affect my ministry every day?’ This requirement puts tangible accountability into what is already a life reality.” (NE)

“Most of us are inconsistent in our devotional life without admitting it. The requirement of a required time in this course for daily devotions is pure gold…and it will last a lifetime!” CHS

“The devotional requirement taught me to pray the Scriptures and the roles of God. It shaped my character.” (HC)

“This is the pulse of all we do. If this is not cultivated within our time here, then everything else will be smoke and mirrors.” (SC)

“The accountability in devotions helped take me to a whole new level in my faith walk with God.” (BH)

“I'm glad I am having to commit to a devotion for an hour a day. So many times I am sporadic with private time with God.” (SG)

Want an evangelistic church...get them spending significant time in devotions...first, as individuals, then as families, then as a church. Pray, Read, Do. Your church will explode.

Believe in the draft?

I was on the radio the other day with a service man (and committed Christian) recently returned from Iraq. He said that he was all in favor of the draft - "I think all young men should have the opportunity to serve their country in a self-sacrificing way."

I said, "What do you think about the church doing the same for mission work?" He raised his eyebrows, quizzically cocked his head (as if he had never thought about such a thing before) and said, "Hmmm."

Know this: other religious traditions aren't wondering about the proposition. They are implementing it. Jonah King says that...

Seventy percent of Church of the Latter-day Saints teens reported religious service involvement, the most among all denominations. Even though they have not yet embarked on their traditional two-year mission by the age of 17, Mormons are taught the importance of service early on, said Latter-Day Saints spokesman Dale Bills. "We involve our youth in service opportunities of many kinds to give them firsthand experience in the joy of helping others," Bills said. "We teach them that God will often meet the needs of others through us; that when we are in the service of others, we are in the service of God."

Serving the country is great. Really great. But serving the Kingdom is greater. Far greater. And the church needs to get the same vision that some in the military service and some in religiously heretical movements already have - service is an expectation. Not an optional extra.

Catherine Booth used to whisper to her children in their cribs: "You have not been sent here for yourselves, you have been sent for others. The world is waiting for you."

Christianity - like learning a language?

John Stoll, for Leadership U, writes about Biblical Principles for Christian Maturity. It contains some pretty good insight. And I like the following, but only to a point...

To further enlighten the reader as to what I believe the Bible refers to as the maturation process of the Christian, let me illustrate by analogy. When one begins to learn a foreign language, he memorizes elements of that language, then he begins to formulate sentences, etc., but when he "crosses over" and begins to think in that language, he enjoys a fullness of understanding never afforded to him before. It opens up a whole new concept of understanding. So likewise, God not only wants us to know the facts of God's Word, but He desires that we know the concepts and principles primarily, so that we can put them all together and think Biblically, as God thinks.

Now, I don't think the contemporary American church could be accused of much maturity, or much deep thinking. But while I like the language analogy I think if conceptually left standing alone it becomes problematic. To know "concepts and principles primarily" might be the best way to learn language (and I think that could be disputed...I, for instance, know all kinds of English speakers that don't know the concepts and principles primarily but who learned the language as their second, or third).

Jesus, it seems to me, taught his disciples the Kingdom of God by concepts and principles while they were doing. Take the calling of the disciples in Matthew 4:

19"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 20At once they left their nets and followed him. 21Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Jesus Heals the Sick 23Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. 24News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

Then, in the narrative, comes the Sermon on the Mount and the great parables and the amazing words. But the concepts and principles came while engaging the culture at the point of their deepest need.

The Church wants to sit and think and, in their thinking, suggest to themselves they are doing something special. Sadly, they too often don't get off of their thinking pews and launch forth from their Sunday School rooms to follow Jesus to the unevangelized, the poor, the sick.

As an old discus thrower, I like sports analogies better than language ones. There are only so much concepts and principles you can learn about the discus, or tackling, or swimming, or jumping before you have to go and do it. And, in the doing, you can correct the flaws for greater excellence.

And that, my friends, is the gist of Christianity. It is in the doing that holy character is truly formed. That is at least as true for evangelism (and maybe especially so) as it is for the other critical dynamics of the faith.

William Booth:

You must do it! You cannot hold back. You have enjoyed yourself in Christianity long enough. You have had pleasant feelings, pleasant songs, pleasant meetings, pleasant prospects. There has been much of human happiness, much clapping of hands and shouting of praises- very much of heaven on earth.

Now then, go to God and tell Him you are prepared as much as necessary to turn your back upon it all, and that you are willing to spend the rest of your days struggling in the midst of these perishing multitudes, whatever it may cost you.You must do it. With the light that is now broken in upon your mind and the call that is now sounding in your ears, and the beckoning hands that are now before your eyes, you have no alternative.

To go down among the perishing crowds is your duty. Your happiness from now on will consist in sharing their misery, your ease in sharing their pain, your crown in helping them to bear their cross, and your heaven in going into the very jaws of hell to rescue them.

Now what will you do?

One great step towards an evangelistic team

On a personal note...

Today, twenty years ago, I took some marriage vows. It seems to me that if you want to spend a lifetime in evangelism and go on a great adventure for God one of the finest choices you can make is to commit yourself to a sturdy, godly woman.

I have made many silly decisions in my life. Many of those decisions slowed me down and curtailed the business of God. But the second best of the few good ones I have made (first - giving my life to Jesus) was my choice of a bride.

She is an evangelist's dream: willing to go wherever God wants her to go, do whatever God wants her to do, give whatever God wants her to give. And, with a real desire to build that kind of abundant life into the lives of her six children.

I am blessed beyond belief. "Thank you God for the grace to choose the most beautiful of women."

Wealth means less evangelism?

Some Barna data:

People that make more than 60,000 a year are the least likely to agree strongly they have a personal responsibility to share their faith with others. 27% believe so compared with 38% of those that make between 35,000-60,000 and 38% of those who make less than 35,000. (2004)

The poorer you are (at least to a point), the more likely you are to share the faith. Why? Scripture thunders against hoarded wealth, and one suspects it is because 1) money deadens our spiritual sensitivities, 2) makes us lazy, 3) give us permission to pay someone else to do what we know we should, and 4) takes our mind of the things of Christ and slowly converts us to the worldly theological construct of Mammonism.

Wesley, for his part, discussed the "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth..." passage with the following recognizing, of course, what the poor but upwardly mobile Methodists would face if not careful:

For high eating and drinking, fine clothes and fine houses, state and equipage, gay pleasures and diversions, do all of them naturally hurt and disorder our heart. They are the food and nourishment of all the folly and weakness of our nature....They are contrary to that sobriety and piety of heart, which relishes divine things.

Every man ought to provide the plain necessaries of life, both for his own wife and children....not delicacies; not superfluities . . . whosoever, I say, being already in these circumstances, seeks a still larger portion on earth; he lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord that bought him. "He hath" practically "denied the faith, and is worse than" an..."infidel."

When will ye be persuaded to choose the better part; that which cannot be taken away from you?....You have murdered your own soul! You have extinguished the last spark of spiritual life therein! Now indeed, in the midst of life, you are in death! You are a living man, but a dead Christian! Your affections are set, not on things above, but on things of the earth; on poor husks, that may poison, but cannot satisfy an everlasting spirit made for God....You have thrown away the treasure in heaven. God and Christ are lost! You have gained riches, - and hell-fire!

The opposite of "soft-sell"

I would love to see some interaction on this quote. And is it entirely consistent with the proclamation of the gospel in the Bible and Christian history?

Theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote: "When one preaches Christianity in such a way that the echo answers, 'Away with that man, he does not deserve to live,' know that this is the Christianity of the New Testament. Capital punishment is the penalty for preaching Christianity as it truly is." Soren Kierkegaard, "The Echo Answers," in Provocations: The Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (Plough, 1999), p. 181

My two cents: The "echo" will definitely answer "away with that man" - at times. And, at other times, there will be those who come, kneel and say, simply, "I want more....feed me." The modern Christian must embrace both responses, and know what to do either way for the glory of God.

Evangelism and social holiness?

Christian History, Spring 2004

Saving Souls & Bodies...Contrary to stereotype, the joy of the holiness life often spilled over into social ministry. By William Kostlevy

For some critics, the term "holiness movement" has conjured images of navel-gazing holy rollers too interested in getting a spiritual thrill or (at most) saving souls to care about alleviating social distress. This caricature is simply not accurate. The movement's most enduring legacy is a nationwide network of missions to the socially and economically disadvantaged—primarily in inner-city neighborhoods.

Holiness leaders, like their eighteenth-century Methodist forebears, taught that sanctification does not stop in the individual heart, but must overflow into "social holiness." Just as cleansing from all sin could occur in this life (against the traditional view that it occurred after the soul left the body, to prepare the believer to stand before a holy God), the ideal of the perfect community was also for today—not to be pushed off into the hereafter.

Powerful article. But purity of heart and compassionate ministry without evangelism doesn't get us where we need to go. Sometimes, we have the mix in many ministries (like the Salvation Army, for instance) that talk about compassion but don't do all that much in evangelism and church growth. If you want a church to get inward fast (and thus Pharisaical) major on purity without a desire to go forth and change the world.

Purity - yes!
Compassion - yes!
Evangelism - yes!

Make that a package deal and you will have a church...and a lifechanging one at that.

Can they still hear our Good News?

The Gospel must be repeatedly forwarded to a new address because the recipient is repeatedly changing places of residence. - Helmut Thielicke

This is an article excerpt from Christianity Today by William Dyrness that points out what is obvious...the Good News we know isn't necessarily good news for them...

As a former missionary I have often reflected on the difference between what I mean to say and what people hear me saying. My colleague Charles Kraft's experience in Nigeria illustrates this clearly. As a new missionary, he once explained the death and resurrection of Christ to an old Nigerian man—a communication of what was to the missionary the simple gospel. "Oh, I have heard of that before," the man said when Chuck had finished. "My nephew once was dead and came back to life." (In that culture anyone who is unconscious is thought to be dead.) Apparently the mere events of Christ's passion did not strike this man as particularly unusual; they were not "good news."

So Chuck decided to take another tack: "What would be the best news in the world that you could possibly imagine?" The man thought a minute and then said, with an air of asking for the impossible: "If I found out that there was a power greater than all the many spirits that trouble me." That was it, Chuck thought to himself, that is the "good news" for these people: In Christ's death and resurrection he has conquered the powers of evil in this culture.

In America, most people at one time or another have probably heard some version of the gospel—at least some of the facts about the gospel. Polls continue to show that a large percentage of Americans believe in God and prayer and know something about Christ's birth and death. But, like the old Nigerian man, Americans understand Christian faith with strong cultural [empathy].

Indeed, an old professor of mine, Dr. Darrell Whiteman (Asbury Seminary), once gave his own example of this:

We should never assume that all needs are alike. Sometimes, what we think are needs may already be met. For instance, in American society, people go off to one place for work, to another place for worship, one for market, one for banking, and still another for school—these are what we call simplex roles. Simplex roles are one strand relationships. You’re in one context, and that’s the only context that I see you in. The result is shallow relationships and nameless people in our lives. To talk about Jesus as Friend, for instance, makes a lot of sense.

But in a multiplex society, you don’t have the problem of alienation and loneliness. Clans are huddled together; extended families are crowded under one roof. Every relative you have may be within a three-mile radius. To talk about Jesus as Friend in a multiplex society doesn’t make sense at all. People want to talk about Jesus as Protector, as a Sustainer of life, as Life itself. But Jesus as Friend? “I don’t have any sense of loneliness! I’ve got too many friends/companions/relatives as it is!” they are likely to say. Understanding these and a multitude of other dynamics will make a radical difference in terms of the context of your ministry.