Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, xii

Word study: “I think we are now living in the very decade when God may thunder his awesome paradidomai (I abandon, or I give [them] up) (Rom. 1:24 ff.) over America’s professed greatness. Our massacre of a million fetuses a year; our deliberate flight from the monogamous family; our normalizing, of fornication and of homosexuality and other sexual perversion; our programming of self-indulgence above social and familial concerns -- all represent a quantum leap in moral deterioration, a leap more awesome than even the supposed qualitative gulf between conventional weapons and nuclear missiles. Our nation has all but tripped the worst ratings on God’s Richter scale of fully deserved moral judgment.” (Carl Henry, Christian Century, November 5, 1980 pp. 1058-1062)

Quote: “It must be kept in mind, however, that Jesus’ teaching was not merely, or even primarily, doctrinal or theoretical, but rather practical and exemplary. That is to say, his teaching consisted, above all, of his example and his actions, through which he communicated the values of the Kingdom of God incarnated in himself….There can be no doubt that this sort of teaching is an essential part of the apostolic tradition, the ‘commandment’ which he entrusted to his followers so that they could fulfill their mission to make disciples.” (Rene Padilla, Transforming Church and Mission)

Stat: “By 2050, only about one-fifth of the world’s 3 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Whties. Soon, the phrase ‘a White Christian’ may sound like a curious oxymoron, as mildly surprising as ‘a Swedish Buddhist.’….The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning. The fact of change itself is undeniable: it has happened, and will continue to happen.” (Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom)

Sad Fact: No county in the U.S. has as great a percentage of its population attending church today as a decade ago. (Win Arn, Pastor's Manual)

Resource: Analyzing Your Congregation's Evangelism Readiness: Click below to download a one-page pdf file that provides a tool for determining your congregation's outlook on evangelism. Download “Our Church's Readiness to Evangelism” (Need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view).

Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, xi

Insight from Michael Green: “If you go for a vacation in Wales or Scotland, you cannot help being struck by the large number of castles, many of them now in ruins. In medieval days the castle was the place of control over the surrounding countryside, the place to run into and be safe when there was an enemy attack. It seems to me that the Christian church in the West is in danger of going back to the castle culture. It used to control public life, especially in matters of honesty, relationships, education, law, medicine, peace, and war. That control has long since gone. However, Christians are in the habit of retiring into the castle of the church – its customs, its dress, its attitudes. But there is a growing alienation between the people in the castle and the people outside: the gap between Christians and others is growing all the time.” Michael Green, Sharing your Faith with friends and family, Baker Books)

Pentecost hour! Three thousand people came to know the Lord when Peter stood up and preached on the day of Pentecost. But…”Did you know that before today is over 30,000 people will come to Christ in China? In sub-Sahara Africa, 20,000 people are won to Christ each day. Today every hour is a Pentecost hour!” (Planting Points, Home Missions Board of the Church of God in Mississippi)

Why the right wing are spiritual losers:

Paul (K.A. Paul) said he believes the Bush administration has delayed the second coming because U.S. foreign policy has blocked Christian missionaries from working in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

"Somebody needs to say enough is enough," he said as worshippers stood, waved and called out in support.

Paul, who claimed to support conservative political leaders in the past, is launching "a crusade to save America from the wrath of God and Republicans abusing their power," according to his press materials.

His focus Sunday was on national races. "God is mad at this country," Paul told the congregation. He described the war in Iraq as "unnecessary genocide."

Quotable! “People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South.” (J. Howard Edington)

Planting study: A recent study was conducted of 160 Southern Baptist churches in a thirteen state area which had sponsored a new church. The goal was to discover what effect planting a church had on the mother/sponsor churches. Five years after sponsoring a church plant these congregations had experienced an average of 49% growth in Sunday morning worship attendance, a 14% increase in baptisms, and a 5% increase in Sunday School attendance. Each of these test congregations had experienced a plateau in growth or decline prior to sponsoring a new church. (Planting Points, www.newchurches.com)

Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, x

Fourteen lessons on evangelism from E. Stanley Jones:

1. Anyone who really desires to win others to conversion can do so.
2. Everyone is made for conversion.
3. It’s three against one, really. The Holy Spirit is dealing with every person alive.
4. Then go to the person with a positive expectation of winning the person.
5. Don’t be inhibited by a feeling of your own unworthiness.
6. Don’t be surprised if there seems to be an initial resistance.
7. When they reveal their needs, don’t be misled by a marginal need….The real need is conversion.
8. Aim at the surrender of the self, not the surrender of this thing, that thing, the other thing.
9. In lieu of surrendering the self the person may raise this, that, or the other religious question….The end in view is not discussion, but decision.
10. When you come to the point of decision get the person on his or her knees….The issue is not now between the counselor and the counselee, but between the counselee and God.
11. Have him write his decision on the flyleaf of his Bible.
12. Get the convert to straighten up his life in all his relationships.
13. Get them into the Christian church as a vital, contagious member.
14. Remember that in this whole process from the initial approach to the final consummation in getting the person into the church and out on his own to win others, the Holy Spirit is teaching you what you shall say and do at every point of need. (Conversion, 218-26)
    

Strip Club Ministry A small Christian college in our area has begun to take students out to the three strip clubs we have in Jackson. They have been threatened, hit and kicked, yet – bless their hearts! – they continue to go out. For good reason:

Sexually-oriented businesses, such as strip clubs and massage parlors attract crime to communities. In addition, the general content of pornography supports abuse and the rape myth (that women enjoy forceful sex) and serves as a how-to for sex crimes, primarily the molestation of children. Land Use Studies by the National Law Center for Children & Families show evidence of the correlation of adult businesses and crime.For example, in Phoenix neighborhoods where adult businesses were located, the number of sex offenses was 506 percent greater than in areas without such businesses. The number of property crimes was 43 percent greater, and the number of violent crimes, 4 percent greater. Dr. Mary Anne Layden, director of education, University of Pennsylvania Health System, pointed out, "I have been treating sexual violence victims and perpetrators for 13 years. I have not treated a single case of sexual violence that did not involve pornography." (Source: Gow, Haven Bradford. "Child Sex Abuse: America's Dirty Little Secret." MS Voices for Children. 3/2000)"

Update from one of the strip club ministers: "I just wanted to tell you some good news. Today in chapel one of the security guards from XXXXXXXXXX showed up. He cried during the service and wants to come again. He shared that he had quit his job and desired a new life. He also said that another security guard had quit and that an assistant manager had quit. He said it was all due to the fact that we had started coming down there. Praise the Lord!"

Praise the Lord, indeed.

TJ was wrong “Thomas Jefferson was confident that rational Unitarianism was destined to be the dominant creed of the new Untied States, and generously offered his version of the New Testament shorn of miracles and supernatural intervention….Unitarian-Universalists today comprise around 0.2 percent of the U.S. population. So thoroughly was eighteenth-century liberalism obliterated that many modern writers tend to assume that its ideas were invented anew by Victoran skeptics and rationalists, or perhaps grew out of the controversies over Darwinian evolution. Then as now, the triumph of secular liberalism proved to be anything but inevitable.” (The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins)

Ring Out There! “In the past, it was necessary only for the Church to ring its bell for the people to come to it. Now, however, it is necessary for the Church to take the bell to the people.” (Pope Paul VI)

Apologetics diminished as an evangelism help

From PreachingNow newsletter:

Haddon Robinson makes the case that apologetics has less impact in evangelism today than in past generations. In a recent interview with PreachingTodaySermons newsletter, he says, "There was a time in which apologetics had great force. I don't think that's as true today. In a postmodern age, to use that cliché, people aren't as impressed with evidences that demand a verdict. That's not just my opinion. It's the opinion of a lot of people who are skilled at reaching non-Christians, who have, in the past, used apologetics. Usually apologetics are more forceful for those who have come into faith, and having come to faith, have all kinds of questions.

"Often a church that has small groups, that has warm fellowship, that draws people to an atmosphere of love, has something going for it. People are drawn to that, and then they want to talk about the gospel. People want relationships; they want to know there are people who care about them. When they find that, then they will hear the gospel, but I don't think apologetics is as strong and as needed today as it was 25 years ago."

Has something taken the place of apologetics? Robinson believes that it is, "people telling their story. I'm not talking about the modern theology that you have your story and I've got my story, but there's no great story, no meta-narrative. I'm talking about telling your testimony, what's happened to you along the way. You're telling how coming to trust Jesus Christ has made a difference in your life. When someone hears that story, and it overlaps their story, there's a way in which that can connect. That's truer today than in the past. We've always used testimonies, but today the witness box has an appeal to people because, in a way, that's the way life comes to them." (Click here to read the full interview.)

Hey Republicans...quit whining!

Republicans this week are bemoaning the fact that the media, and none too few soccer moms, are holding the entire party accountable for the under-a-cloud resignation of Rep. Mark Foley, a congressman found to be a bit too intimate with minor-aged pages.

The GOP feigns shock. Afterall, if the media is so relentlessly in pursuit of this the month before the November elections shouldn’t they at least try to put the Foley scandal in perspective with the Democratic Reps. Barney Franks, Gary Studds, Gary Condit and President Bill Clinton scandals of yesteryear. The rabid liberal media didn’t seem nearly so interested in accountability then as they seem to be now with Foley and the GOP.

The real lesson in all this – get over it. Get over it Republicans, cultural conservatives and those pleased to be dubbed the religious right. If your favorite political party has a supposed moral core that wants to advertise on issues like, for instance, what constitutes a family, the Judeo-Christian value system and the protection of life at its earliest conception - then don’t be surprised that you might be judged by a higher standard by those to whom you are selling your vision of the world.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount taught us that “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In other words, high moral principles mean a higher standard of accountability for yourself. So, when one of your political party falls in sexual disgrace, then don’t be surprised if a liberal secular media jumps all over it with glee and then gladly pounds your chances for majority power in Congress to a pulp weeks before an election.

I, for one, thinks it is important to set a high standard and then live up to that standard with firmness, humility and kindness. And when that standard is not met by our team, we should own up to our failing, take appropriate action and let the political or public perception fallout drop where they may. What we shouldn’t do is whine about how unfair it is that no one likes us now because we a) didn’t nip this problem in the bud when we could have and b) by golly, why can’t people remember names like Frank, Studds, Condit and Clinton when we need them to?

Two answers to that last question. The Democrats and the media have no such high standards and the Republicans have advertised that they do.

Quit whining, clean up your House and face the future in a state of renewed focus. That the Republican House didn’t think this a good strategy a year ago, what we might really be talking about here is a well-deserved minority focus.

Top fifty books that have impacted evangelicals

This is, like all lists of this sort must be, both encouraging and maddening. What is not on here that should be?

Rick Warren and Greg Boyd on Charlie Rose

Two insightful mega-church pastors with some provocative ideas about the direction of the church. Good stuff, even if you might have your disagreements.

Forgetting this characteristic of Jesus?

This is from Michael Duduit on the pastors.com website.

In a Preaching magazine interview, Ed Young, Sr. talked about how he does apologetic preaching in conjunction with "marketplace ministries" at Houston's Second Baptist Church, one of the nation's largest congregations.

He notes: "We've forgotten several things about the characteristics of Jesus. Get in an average church and ask, ‘Name all the characteristics of Jesus.' They'll say he was lovely, he was kind. One thing they'll often forget is he was a friend of sinners. We've forgotten that – how to be a friend to sinners.

"If you minister to people where they hurt, you don't have to worry about a chance to introduce them to Christ; they're going to ask you about coming to know Christ," Young said. "They'll want to go to church with you. But you can't befriend them in some superficial way and ‘hang a scalp' on your wall. So I think the church needs to be there to minister, to love and nurture, and when people come in they find what the world's looking for – life!"

Tuesday morning evangelistic smackdown, ix

When do we have the form without the power of religion?

· When we develop church growth strategies that target the middle class instead of the poor and marginalized, then we have the form without the power.

· When we spend more of our resources on constructing and maintaining Church buildings and property than we do on feeding the hungry, then we have the form without the power.

· When we spend more on pastor’s salaries, benefits, and pensions, than we do on clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless, then we have the form without the power.

· When we turn stewardship into financial campaigns for the Church, rather than sacrifice for the poor, then we have the form but not the power.

· When we blame poverty on the sloth of the poor rather than the avarice of the prosperous and the indifference of the comfortable, then we have the form but not the power.

· When we furnish our sanctuaries and social halls in such a way as to make the prosperous comfortable rather than make the indigent welcome, then we have the form but not the power…

· When we preach a grace which saves us without changing us, then we have the form but not the power. (Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. in Theology and Evangelism in the Wesleyan Heritage ed. b James C. Logan)

God Speaks to Pastor Cymbala “If you and your wife will lead my people to pray and call upon my name, you will never lack for something fresh to preach. I will supply alla the money that’s needed, both for the church and for your family, and you will never have a building large enough to contain the crowds I will send in response.” (God’s words as sensed by Jim Cymbala as he was on a party fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico before Brooklyn Tabernacle’s meteoric growth)

First Baptist Church, Jackson, MS. “By the year 1964 the membership of First Baptist significantly declined to the middle 4,000s from a high of 5,556 in 1952. [Rev. William] Hudgins needed to get people back into the pews of his sanctuary….by calling the faithful away from civil right and social existence, Hudgins was able to preserve the purity of the closed church and the closed society for the sake of the closed Gospel….If you were a Klan militant searching the night for the civil rights heretics, you would count it fortunate that the pure souls had turned their sight inward.” (God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights, Charles Marsh)

Quotables:

Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell. (C.T. Studd)

The world perceives us as pious and self-centered in our protected sanctuaries and multimillion-dollar church complexes – but that is simply not where most of the sick, hurting, and hungry people are, so they never hear our message. But imagine what would happen if the poor and needy could see us where they live, as we meet them at their point of need. (Charles Colson, Dare to Be Different, Dare to be a Christian, Victor Books, 1986)

Too smart for some?

John Derbyshire over at National Review includes this communication nugget:

A friend of mine, an academic psychologist, remarked offhandedly a few months ago that communication between two human beings is difficult if the gap between their IQs is as much as one standard deviation (i.e. 15 points). If you try communicating across gaps bigger than that, she said, mutual understanding quickly becomes impossible.

One wonders how, say, Jesus every winsomely delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Or, how John Wesley effectively communicated with those whose lower-class faces were stained with coal. Or...well, you get the idea. True intellectual brilliance has little to do with standard deviation differences and more with how to take God's gift to your mind and transform it into that which is life-changing and understandable.

C.S. Lewis being able to communicate new worlds to my exceedingly humble imagination comes to mind, for instance...

Fresh basics

Christianity Today asked pastors about "fresh basics for the local church." Here is some of what they found:

"As in every age," says John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, "the greatest challenge … will be to treasure above all goods and kindred and this mortal life that Jesus revealed with infallibility, perspicuity, and sufficiency in the propositions of the written Word of God, the Bible."

Will Willimon, United Methodist bishop of North Alabama, sees a similar timeless need: "The greatest challenge facing the local church in the next 50 years is the same one that we've never quite met in our last 50 (or 2,000) years: To enable our congregation to be half as interesting as Jesus!"

Joshua Harris, the young pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, notes that he preaches to people who "are influenced by [pluralism] more than they realize."

Dale Burke, pastor of First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California, believes that "a shrinking percentage of the culture even cares about what we have to say." The challenge is to engage them without compromising the core message and its power. He believes the church must "lead with love," "not with the slickness of the presentation but with the sweetness of acts of grace and kindness."

Mark Dever, pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., believes a pluralistic culture will turn increasingly intolerant of Christian faith. Our challenge will be faithfulness to the gospel "when it is seen as anywhere from criminally intolerant hate speech to [merely] unpopular."

John Sommerville of City Church in Minneapolis is anxious for churches to engage the culture in ministries of mercy as well as proclamation.

John Huffman from St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, notes that consumerism affects not only the people we try to reach, but also the very nature of what we consider a "successful" church—which he's not sure is really so successful.

Michael Horton, a minister with the United Reform Churches who teaches at Westminster Seminary California wonders whether churches can regain their confidence in the "ordinary ministry of Word and sacrament."

Robert Lewis of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle both see ministry to men as the future's key challenge. Lewis considers men "the lost gender," while Driscoll highlights a crying need for proclaiming a manly Jesus, lest "increasingly impotent churches [become] filled with mere handfuls of nice church boys standing around drinking decaf while the world goes to hell."