Yep.
The Remedy for Our Helicopter Parenting
This article is so helpful that it forces me to break my policy of not linking to TGC articles which are just excerpts from books.
Helping Rural America in Crisis
This hits home.
How Exaggeration Can Undermine Your Joy in the Gospel
Best article I’ve ever read in all of history…okay, not really, but the author makes a great point about the pitfalls of our propensity to exaggerate.
This guy proposes using Super Mario Bros. See how:
A couple years ago Dave Miller ran—and was elected—as the 2nd VP of the SBC. In 2012 I noted that I would not be voting for him. I’m changing my tune this time around. I will, Lord willing, be voting for Dave Miller as PC President this year at the SBC Annual Meeting.
I know next to nothing about the person running against him, John Avant. All I have to go on is that what I read in this BP article. It sounds as if he will be running on a spiritual awakening type of platform. We’ve been hearing much of this within the SBC over the past few years. I agree that we need God to work and move within our world, our nation, our denomination, our churches, and our own individual hearts. I’m all for that. But I’ve got a different vision as to how that will happen.
When we analyze revivals from our viewpoint we naturally go to the figureheads of such revivals. We dream of being the next Edwards or Whitefield—ones whom God uses mightily to see many converted. We want to see the church renewed and I wonder if part of our “Lord, let it begin in me” prayers is really saying, “Lord, revive my heart, make me significant, and put my name in the history books as one you used”. (I’m only confessing here the temptation which bubbles up in my own heart).
But revivals did not historically begin from the top down. They were not manufactured—and anytime they were they ended up doing more harm than good (see Charles Finney). Most revivals began in a really small way by men and women who were faithful plodders. Men like Jonathan Edwards did not set about to set the world aflame. They were common pastors preaching common sermons and God set the world ablaze through them.
This is why I’m voting for Dave Miller for Pastor’s Conference President. I love the vision that Voices for Baptist Future has put together. I love the idea of ordinary pastors preaching ordinary sermons from an extraordinary Bible. I’m convinced a good deal of spiritual awakening will happen within our denomination once our drive for celebrity is slain.
I’ve heard the objections. Like, “nobody will come if they don’t know the people who are preaching”. We come to hear the David Platt’s of the world not the Tom, Dick, and Harry’s of Podunk Baptist Church. If this is true then we probably ought to be gut honest and say that we really don’t want revival—we want notoriety. Do we really expect to see revival if what draws us isn’t “a faithful exposition of Paul’s letter to the Philippians” but instead is “Mr. Celebrity Pastor telling us how to get things done”?
I’m convinced one thing our denomination greatly needs is to kick celebrityism right in the teeth. What better way to do this than to elect a common man—outside the good ol’ boy network—like Dave Miller? Dave is a plodding pastor of a smaller church in Iowa who will network with other smaller church pastors to see a bunch of “nobodies” stand before the largest congregation they’ll likely ever preach to and say, “thus says the Lord”.
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For full disclosure you will notice that my name is listed on that group known as Voices for a New Baptist Future. This is true really in name only. I’m a total outsider when it comes to any type of denominational stuff. These guys are just kind enough to let me chat amongst them and learn. So I’m not speaking for the group or even really as part of the group with this post. I’d vote for Dave Miller and this vision whether these guys gave me a seat at the table or not.
That picture is of Dave in his lime green suit. Nothing says “not gonna make it as a celebrity” like this suit. It’s also obligatory when writing an article about Dave that you have to include a pic of these infamous threads.
When Your Pastor Preaches a Sermon Dud
John Newton himself preached a few duds, so I appreciated Tony’s counsel for when we ordinary preaches throw up a real stinker.
I don’t know why I found this list so interesting, but I did.
Jonathan Leeman does a phenomenal job of showing how the abortion industry has had to dehumanize people in order for their atrocious acts to make sense.
The LGBT Movement Will Self-Destruct
I’m not so sure. Maybe the fruits of it, but I think the insane logic which has given birth to it might be here to stay at least until our ultimate demise or the return of Christ.
Watch a blind cat playing fetch:
Lord, come with Your fire,
Burn my desires; refine me
Lord, my will has deceived me
Please come and free me
Come rescue this child
For I long to be reconciled to You-Jennifer Knapp, Refine Me
The gritty music of Jennifer Knapp was the soundtrack of my early Christian life. I shed many tears listening to her albums. Some were tears of repentance. Others were tears of joy as I realized the truth of the gospel. All of them were tears of desperation.
I thought of Jennifer Knapp again the other day when I read that the lead singer of Everyday Sunday had written a letter to his fans announcing that he was gay. He follows the path of a growing number of former/current Christian musicians, like Jennifer Knapp, who gave up the struggle.
I know what I’m about to write will put me in the category of bigot, hater, narrow-minded and a host of other not so loving labels. The decision of Knapp and Pearson (the lead singer of Everyday Sunday) is to be celebrated we are told. Though they themselves claim to still be on the journey, in the opinion of many they have already reached the zenith of American spirituality. They have found themselves. And rather than caving in to the fear and oppression of ancient words, they’ve chosen the path of being true to themselves. They will fight who they are no more.
And this is what makes me weep.
Their struggle was my struggle. Not the struggle to be heterosexual but the struggle to be holy. The struggle to have my desires burned. To be refined. To deny my self in areas where I knew the Scriptures were calling me to be a different man than I was being. To be pure.
Her lyrics carried me through some of those times. I prayed along with her that God would refine me. And he did. Time and time again. I still found “room upon that knee”. I found that through Christ I was accepted and loved even in the midst of my struggle. But I found, as I sat upon that knee, that my Father wasn’t content with me dabbling in fleeting pleasures. He was radically dedicated to my eternal enjoyment of Him and he was willing to put me through the fire to burn away the dross of ungodliness. He is still doing this. Yes, he is refining me.
What I heard from Jennifer Knapp was that she was giving up the fight. This was who she was and it wasn’t going to be refined. There wasn’t really a struggle in this area anymore. Her struggle is more about being authentic. Pearson’s letter is similar to Knapp’s interview with CT. At one point he says, “I can’t change how I am”. To him the most loving thing to do was to leave his spouse and live his life as a gay man. He goes on to say, “I know I have a long way to go. But if this honesty with myself about who I am, and who I was made by God to be, doesn’t constitute as the peace that passes all understanding, then I don’t know what does.”
This fits perfectly within the narrative of our culture. But it does not fit with Scripture. This idea of “accepting myself” runs absolutely counter to Jesus’ call to deny ourselves. Where in Scripture are we told that the Christian life is about “finding ourselves” or “accepting ourselves”? It is the exact opposite. Paul’s ambition was to be found in Christ. Jesus’ call was to crucify ourselves.
I’m seeing more and more young people follow the path of Knapp and Pearson. It’s becoming quite the broad road. And this broad road isn’t labeled homosexuality. This broad road is labeled “accepting myself”. That is the foundational doctrine of this American heresy. And it is swallowing up more and more of those my age and younger. It’s a doctrine which runs away from the Refiner’s fire.
But I ask, where is the Cross in all of this? Is it your Cross to fight the way this backwards church views you on your road to accepting yourself? Is that what Jesus told you to take up? Or is it the Cross of inordinate desires (both gay and straight)? Is it the Cross which calls us to deny ourselves—to slay every desire which isn’t in conformity to Christ, even desires which seem to be the very fabric of our being?
I’m convinced that the Scriptures are true and sin has touched me to the core. I’m also convinced that Jesus is redeeming me to the core. Which means he isn’t about to let me be comfortable with who I am as a marred image bearer. He’s after me getting more comfortable in my new identity which is diametrically opposed to the old. That is the cross I bear daily.
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Photo source: here