Kneading Bread

Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age from Tim Keller via The Resurgence 

The Morning I heard the Voice of God from John Piper via Desiring God 

Apologies to any readers – I’ve been wicked busy with work and getting things lined up for school. I have been accepted to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and am in the process sorting out all of my funding. Amazing blessings have come in the form The Graham Scholarship, but other funding is certainly needed. I’m excited about continuing my education and hope to get back to the blog as I have time.

Too often bible studies are thinly veiled attempts at socializing in Christian circles (and not that there is anything wrong with that, but please call a spade a spade.) So here’s some usefully organized links to getting yourself on a more exegetical approach from the ESV bible blog.

My wife and I were talking about the fact that we should live the Christian life as a holistic world view, our actions should really reflect what Christ teaches, even when those choices are contrary to what the world teaches. This covers the day-to-day aspects of life, but what about the things that are outside of your life? 

The example she gave was Darfur, as a horrible thing that she felt was outside of the daily life that we were talking about and therefore tougher to make a decision about how to act. We decided that if we felt we needed to help then that was the Spirit moving in our heart and that we should respond. If she felt we needed to do more than give money that we should do more, it is all a matter of answering the ache of the Spirit inside of you. Kingdom work is both mundane and heroic at the same time, it is all
about where the motivations come from. So, if you’re watching the news and you just want to cry about a tragedy, pray about it, and if you feel God is calling you to action, then act. Don’t just pray for them, but pray what you should do for them. We can’t retreat from those who are suffering and marginalized, because in us they will experience the kingdom, and in them we will experience the kingdom.

Touchstone has a quick little blog post on what five books you’d take with you on a Desert Island… as much as I love books, I think I could only say definitively that I’d bring my Bible, but maybe you will have a longer list to write about in their comments.

Al Mohler (of the Southern Baptists) takes an unrepentant Ann Coulter to task in this post

Here John Piper and Mark Dever talk about redemption, and you can listen in

Looking back, this is a little Baptist heavy, but I’m not a Baptist – just happens these Baptists are talking about interesting things!

The National Council of Churches has released their Yearbook for 2007, listing the membership and change in membership of the largest churches in the US. It is an interesting read and has some notable takeaways:

1. Most of the Churches you’ll see in my region are decreasing (Methodist, ELCA, PCUSA, Episcopal Church, UCC)
2. The largest year-to-year increase was by the Orthodox Church in America, with a whopping 6.4% increase
3. Most churches don’t report their membership yearly, and their numbers are estimated (and therefore suspect, in my opinion.)

Enjoy the press-release here

Conveniently enough a conservative Christian sounded off this past week directly contradicting what I am going to say. James Dobson has encouraged Christians to not worry about the environment because it can demoralize and divide evangelicalism… interesting. (see this story) 

Today’s little tidbit of change is this: That Christianity is not a single-issue faith; we are called to bring good news to the poor, bind the brokenhearted, free captives and prisoners and we don’t just do one or two of these things, we do them all. We combat injustice, and love and seek reconciliation between both the violated and the violator. Too often we tell ourselves that it is okay to limit actions to a few certain issues so that we can most effectively do them. Christ doesn’t call us to an effective ministry, He calls us to an holistic ministry. What we do is as much a working out of our faith to know Christ more as it is to do the work in the world. Christ is the only effective minister to the needs of this world, and we can only hope to imitate Him.

Some people box Jesus into a nice box, pro-family, pro-life, and pro-america – to this I add anti-poverty, pro-humanity, pro-peace, pro-justice, pro-righteousness, pro-holiness, pro-Jesus, pro-dustfromsandals, pro-anything that is as it will be in the world to come. We bring a foretaste of a great Kingdom, we don’t just bring breath-mints to to a rotting world, we bring a new world to it. When the Spirit works in my heart to make it ache I should listen, even if it makes my actions occur outside of the comfortable box of single-issue faith.

I’ve been struggling with a lot of things internally for quite some time… and I thought I might just just write it out here for the world to see, because I think I’m not the only one who wrestles with the reality of the Gospel.

The Gospel, the good news, can sometimes be anything but good news. We’re taught (including within church walls) that we can create a life of order, be pleasing to God, and make a reasonable buck while doing it. The tension I’m developing is that I think these are all false hopes, false doctrines, and false idols. Those who find themselves in the ”first world”/developed nations live in such an unrealistic world when compared to those in countries such as Sudan… that, in a way, we are almost all
the rich young man (Mark 10.)

Deep in our hearts I believe we all know we are the rich young man, but there exists in us an insurmountable hump, a massive mound composed of our surroundings. Marx once compared Christianity to a sedative, I’d like to posit that he misdiagnosed the problem and that religion was being held back because the entire world is sedated our preoccupation with ourselves and our stuff.

While a little late for a lenten exercise, I feel compelled to challenge anyone who is reading this to look inside and “name names” when it comes to what is your sedative when it comes to keeping your from following Jesus on the radical path of love. I’ll also try to post some of my own “sedatives” in the effort to detox myself and pay attention to what is really the mission we are called to.

Here’s some ideas as to what’s deadening your heart: TV, computers, video games, living in the suburbs, driving everywhere, pride in your job, pride in your family upbringing, pride in your country/government (yes, I said it – and if you want to debate me on it, go ahead) – the list can go on, and everyone possesses a unique combination.

The polling numbers say that 40 percent of Americans attend church regularly, but those numbers lie. Digging a little deeper helps to reveal a more troubling aspect of the American psyche; like pealing away the layers of an onion, the reality of American church attendance reflects on our own perceptions of what we believe we should be doing.
I’m not discouraged by these numbers, I believe that the Church should realize it isn’t the place where people really want to be on Sundays. We can’t just expect a sign with a pithy quote or, as I fear most congregations believe, the mere presence of our buildings to be our main appeal to new visitors.
Check out the details thanks to between two worlds.