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Rick Warren on Jerry Falwell

His press release on Falwell's death:

“Jerry Falwell was one of the giant figures who towered over the 20th Century American church. While most people knew him as the founder of the Moral Majority, the face of the Religious Right, and by some of his more controversial statements, many saw only his opponent’s caricature of the real man.

The story was never told about his compassionate heart, his gentle spirit, his enormous sense of humor, and the millions he invested in helping the underprivileged. Jerry founded the Elim Home for alcoholics, the Center for tutoring inner city children, the Hope Aglow ministry to prisoners, Liberty Godparent Home for unwed mothers, and literally dozens of other compassion projects to help the poor, the sick, and others in desperate need.

I believe Jerry Falwell’s primary legacy will not be his political leadership, but the church he pastored for 50 years; the university he founded that has produced two generations of leaders; the millions who heard him preach the Good News; the innovations in ministry he introduced; and the thousands of young pastors, like myself, whom he constantly encouraged, even when we did it differently.“

Is a National Day of Prayer really helpful?

The National Day of Prayer for this year has come and gone. It is time we investigated the whole concept a bit further.

I don’t have anything against such a “National Day…” Anytime God’s people get together to praise and thank, to confess and intercede, all the better. But the issue, which is addressed precious little these days, lies further on.

E. Stanley Jones, the late Methodist missionary to India, once said that “Where there is no effective prayer life, the heart of religion has ceased to beat and…becomes a dead body of forms and customs and dogmas.” And yet the vast majority of lay and clergy alike don’t practice a consistent and daily practice of prayer and thus fall as casualties before the admonition of James: “The prayers of a righteous man availeth much.” Righteousness is a matter of God’s grace and prayer is one of the chief means of that grace.

Jones continues: “If I were to put my finger on the greatest lack in American Christianity, I would unhesitantly point to the need for an effective prayer life among laity and ministers.” And then Kagawa is quoted. To second-generation Japanese Christians in America he said “Your greatest lack is that you do not know how to pray.” Christianity becomes anemic and feckless without personal prayer lives. (E. Stanley Jones, How to Pray)

And what has happened to the church prayer meeting? Once this nation was known for Wednesday night prayer gatherings where people labored in getting through to God. Now, if there is a prayer meeting at all, it is too often the most boring meeting of the week, little attended and the hour is crammed with singing, preaching and requests more than fervent prayer.

Pastor Jim Cymbala swears that Brooklyn Tabernacle went from “doomed” to dynamic after he sensed God speaking to him: “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 all 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.”

“Lead to pray.” In Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire Cymbala then quotes that great Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.

All of this to ask: What use is a National Day of Prayer if no one has a prayer life, and local churches aren’t passionately interceding?

We need the following:

• Pastors who spend at least an hour a day in personal prayer thus leading by example in this most consequential church dynamic.
  
  
• Churches who reclaim a time for fervent intercession either during the Sunday service or at something like a Wednesday prayer meeting or both.
  
  
• We need pastors to begin beckoning their people to consistent and ardent prayer and fasting as a local church standard.
  
  
• We need seasons of prayer where pastors and laity alike are honing in on the life of holiness God desires for all of us.
  
  
• Then…we need to participate in the bigger vision of “National Days of Prayer.”
  

I just have this funny feeling that doing the last without the former won’t mean much to God. And that all of these together in abundant fashion across the nation will likely mean revival.

Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, #29

Three ways to teach evangelism and compassionate ministry:

I have often wondered if there aren’t three ways to teach evangelism and compassionate ministry to your seminary students (and, by extension, to your church).

Method one: hypocritically. This means, you use your mouth and pulpit/lectern only. You don’t actually evangelize yourself, you just talk about it.

Method two: from the margins. You do talk about it, and you do it. But you don’t involve others with you in the ministry. Your teaching thus is separated from your action.

Method three: centrally. You teach and preach about it, and you do it, and you involve others with you. This is Christ’s method.

Insight – I don’t know that I have ever (with any degree of certainty) been taught evangelism by someone who did anything other than the first method.

What evangelism does for the evangelist:
“Evangelism is work, often hard work. Yet it is not drudgery. It puts a person on good humor, and makes him truly human.” (Oswald C.J. Hoffmann)

An outreach idea
AUTO-CARE (www.autocareministry.com) - Policies and procedures (call for passcode & username)

• Monthly ministry to single moms and widows
• Volunteer mechanics provide service and tools
• Services are provided on the church property or site
• Advertisement interest everybody
• Involves everybody in the church to serve
• High exposure to the community leaders and other churches

A bunch of interesting audio seminars to download.
Go for it.

Three transferable insights from John Calvin: Acts 4:1-4
Three things are to be chiefly noted in this narration.

First, that as soon as the truth of the Gospel comes to light, Satan sets himself in opposition to it by every means in his power, and uses every endeavour to crush it in its earliest beginnings.

Secondly, that God furnishes His children with unconquerable fortitude, that they may stand firm and unmoved against all the devices of Satan and may not yield to the violence of the wicked.

Finally, we must not the outcome, that however completely the enemy may appear to be dominant and in control of events, leaving no stone unturned to blot out the Name of Christ, and however much on the other hand the ministers of sound doctrine be as sheep in the mouths of wolves, God none the less spreads abroad the Kingdom of His Son, keeps alive the light of His Gospel, and looks to the safety of His children. (Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Acts Vol. 1)

"Is Christianity Good for the World?" A debate

Woo-hoo! Something interesting to read during finals week!

True or false?

One man practicing Christianity is better than a thousand preaching it.

What would Jesus really do?

What would Jesus really do? Provocative article. What do you think?

Tuesday morning evangelistic smack-down, #28

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire reminder:

Pastor Jim Cymbala swears that Brooklyn Tabernacle went from “doomed” to dynamic after he sensed God speaking to him: “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 all 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.”

“Lead to pray.” In Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire Cymbala then quotes that great Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.

Concerning the National Day of Prayer:
What use is a National Day of Prayer if no one has a prayer life, and local churches aren’t passionately interceding?

We need the following:

• Pastors who spend at least an hour a day in personal prayer thus leading by example in this most consequential church dynamic.
  
  
• Churches who reclaim a time for fervent intercession either during the Sunday service or at something like a Wednesday prayer meeting or both.
  
  
• We need pastors to begin beckoning their people to consistent and ardent prayer and fasting as a local church standard.
  
  
• We need seasons of prayer where pastors and laity alike are honing in on the life of holiness God desires for all of us.
  
  
• Then…we need to participate in the bigger vision of “National Days of Prayer.”

I just have this funny feeling that doing the last without the former won’t mean much to God. And that all of these together in abundant fashion across the nation will likely mean revival. MF

Barna.org
A new survey released by The Barna Group, which has been tracking America’s religious behavior and beliefs since 1984, reveals that one out of every three adults (33%) is classified as unchurched - meaning they have not attended a religious service of any type during the past six months. While that figure is considerably higher than the one out of five who qualified as unchurched in the early Nineties, it is statistically unchanged since 36% were recorded as having avoided religious services in the company’s 1994 study.

Podcast
Rick Warren’s discussion with several about how to minister in an urban setting. Always worth listening to. http://blog.pastors.com/

Lausanne
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA/COLORADO SPRINGS, CO USA, 4 May - The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE, www.lausanne.org) today announced plans for the Third International Congress on World Evangelization, to be held 16-25 October, 2010, in Cape Town, South Africa. "Lausanne III: Cape Town 2010" will gather mission and church leaders from around the world to address challenges and opportunities that are before the church with respect to world evangelization.

Mark Driscoll gets some added criticism

Apparently Driscoll got in a bit of hot water over this video. Mostly, it was his "man" talk and his apparent dismissal of women in ministry. What do you think?