February 10, 2012

Preaching: Conversational Stand-up or Serious Gospel Exposition?

A typically provocative word from Carl Trueman on the legacy of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the “Doctor” (HT: JT):

We have leaders with a lot of swagger and `street cred’; Lloyd-Jones had gravitas and did not care to be cool.  Lloyd-Jones may have been less than clear on what he wanted in 1966, but he always had complete clarity about the gospel and little time for trendy diversions.  We have leaders whose politeness too often creates an atmosphere of ambiguity and uncertainty; Lloyd-Jones spoke on doctrinal issues with unerring clarity.   He was obviously a serious man of conviction with a seriously convicting message.  And, for the record, I would take five minutes of his serious gospel exposition over an hour of the conversational stand-up of today’s cutting-edge preachers any day.

Read the whole piece.  I, for one, am with Trueman; though I appreciate some humor and personality in the pulpit, I prefer “serious gospel exposition” to a running comedic monologue loosely based on a passage.  I think we could stand to have more of the former and a bit less of the latter.  Young preachers–emulate figures like Lloyd-Jones.  Decades later, we’re still engaging his sermons and profiting hugely from them; the fluffy stuff will blow away like chaff.

Preaching to my mind doesn’t mean the snuffing out of personality.  But it does mean that the text has center stage, and not the wit/charm/candor of the preacher.  I’m thankful for the example of a figure like MLJ, who spoke with great power yet made clear that the sermon was an exposition of the sacred text.

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February 9, 2012

Linsanity: Jeremy Lin, Christian Basketball Star

If you haven’t heard of Jeremy Lin yet, you soon will (see this dated Time article).  He’s a Christian basketball player for the New York Knicks.  He’s also a Harvard graduate and an Asian-American.  I’ve followed Lin on Twitter for some time, but he struggled early in the season as he was cut from the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets.  The Knicks claimed him off waivers, and he actually played a game in the developmental league in my home state for the Portland Red Claws.  Lin was not doing well, and it looked like he would be cut from the Knicks.

But a number of injuries forced coach Mike D’Antoni to give Lin an extended trial.  In his first game getting significant minutes, Lin scored 25 points; the next game, 28; and last night, 23 with ten assists.  In short, he is lighting up the NBA.  It’s a beautiful thing to watch, not least because this is a guy who Tweets CJ Mahaney quotations.  His situation has been so unstable that he’s slept on his teammate’s couch–imagine LeBron or Kobe doing that!

I would encourage you to keep your eyes out for Lin.  Though he was undrafted, he has many skills and could be a starting point guard.  He’s tall, has a great first step, is an excellent finisher, and creates many openings for teammates.  He plays good defense.  In short, I love his game, and it’s exciting to see yet another Christian athlete excel.  It’s also great to see an Asian-American Christian draw attention.  I’ve heard that Asian-Americans, to speak broadly, can feel like the “silent minority” in the American church, and that’s a major problem.

My buddy Doug Hankins of TEDS–a baller in his own right, with an excellent blog to match–just linked to some comments from Carl Park, a fellow TEDS PhD student, who commented positively on Lin’s impact for the Asian-American community.

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February 8, 2012

Should You Pay Your Kids to Tweet? On Social Media Addiction

A couple of days back, Jon Acuff–laugh-out-loud writer and author of Stuff Christians Like–wrote a post on how to manage social media use as a father.  Acuff wrote the post in a whimsical style but ended up recommending that dads “pay for Tweets” in an effort to curb their phone use while at home.

Here’s what he said on this point:

The time doesn’t belong to me when we’re all hanging out. It’s family time. So if I want to use some of that valuable family time to write a tweet, it only makes sense that I would buy that time back from my kids. So every time I tweet on the weekends or on weeknights, I have to give each kid a quarter.

Let’s not treat this as some super-serious matter.  Reformed types can sometimes end up treating every little cultural ripple as a major wave.  We can bring a Thousand Mega-tons of Doctrinal Force to bear on the ministrations of a molehill.  That’s not good.  I should also say up front that I’m glad, genuinely glad, that Acuff is taking some kind of action to engage with his family and curb his social media addiction.

But I would say that I think Acuff may be barking up the wrong tree here.  Whatever happened to good old-fashioned self-control?  Are we really so addicted to social media that we literally can’t put the iPhone down?

I understand this temptation, by the way.  I have an iPhone.  Sometimes, you come home from work and you’re tired and you don’t want to engage.  Or you get an idea and you really want to share it with the world (or at least several hundred/thousand of your closest friends).  I get that.  I’ve had to focus on this matter and essentially retrain myself out of bad habits.  I’m like Acuff, after all–I like ideas, my brain is usually going, and most significantly I’m a sinner, so I can take immense blessings like my sweet kids and my great wife and ignore or disdain them.

It may not be the worst thing in the world, then, to “pay for Tweets.”  Like I said, at least Acuff is fighting his addiction, unlike many parents I see.  Let’s just be honest–the smartphone has become an escape tool.  When you’re with your kids but your heart’s not in it, you jump on Twitter and scroll through comments.  Meanwhile, your kids get annoyed, they act up, and no one ends up happy.

So some action is better than no action.  But doesn’t “paying for Tweets” put your kids in the awkward position of adjudicating your fatherly behavior?  That’s a silly idea, and a bad one.  Your kids shouldn’t be your authority (even in a whimsical sense), you should be theirs.  It may be fun for a bit to have them “police” you, but that’s ultimately an irresponsible position to put them in.

How about this for a proposal?  Buckle your seatbelt, because this one’s really going to take your breath away; it’s likely that a whole new way to be a dad may open up for you in this very paragraph.  How about fathers be fathers?  How about they exercise major amounts of self-control, praying to God for the strength given them in the power of the Holy Spirit through union with the world-conquering Christ?  How about they discipline themselves, and own their fatherliness, and take on responsibility, and live and think and act as a God-commissioned authority?

How about they cease to spend their time like a little kid with a new video game and instead leave their phone alone for, I don’t know, hours, and plug in with their tired wives and help their children who are filled with pent-up excitement and want nothing more than to play with them uninterruptedly?

How about about as fathers we cease to image a distracted, selfish, boyish father (a pale reflection of the father of lies, don’t you think?) and instead image a loving, strong, others-centered father (something akin to, say, the heavenly father)?

I’m guessing Jon Acuff wants to be a good dad and may well be.  And I did break my promise and go a bit thermonuclear in my cultural analysis.  But I do think that our culture of weak manhood has lowered our expectations of ourselves to a new low.  We’re all grading on a curve nowadays, and we can trick ourselves into thinking that a “C” effort really deserves an “A.”

So how about this: we break our social media addictions (which really are sinful, by the way) and reassume the role of Christ-shaped champion of our home?  We will surely bless our sweet wives and kids, and we’ll end up with a good deal more quarters in our pockets besides.

 

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February 7, 2012

Things You Should Listen to: The Reformed Forum Podcast

Do you know about the Reformed Forum?  You should.  It’s great.

It’s a podcast done by some really good guys affiliated with Westminster Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA).  Here’s the brief description:

Reformed Forum is a reformed theology media network, which seeks to serve the church by providing content dedicated to issues in reformed theology. … Reformed Forum records much of its content on the campus of Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, PA.  … As an organization, we subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as adopted by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The RF is led by Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint, and frequently features church planter Nick Batzig.  I’m personally hoping that promising upstart Credo magazine will emulate this excellent effort and begin its own podcast featuring guys like Matthew Barrett, Luke Stamps, and others.  We Baptists could use more of this kind of staunch theological discussion.  We shouldn’t shy away from such work, but should embrace it–because theology is, after all, for the church, given so that we might flourish and thrive in Christ.

Good theology (like bad) trickles down, even when done at the highest levels.  It builds the saints.  It gives life.  It clears up confusion.  It leaves the church with a full stomach, not a growling belly.  We need more of it, and then we need some more, and then some more after that, all for our spiritual vitality.

Here’s a description of a recent Reformed Forum conversation on the historical Adam that would be well worth your time:

Rick Phillips joins Nick Batzig and Kenneth Kang-Hui to speak about the historical Adam. The teaching that Adam was a historical figure, the federal head of all those who descend from him by ordinary generation, has become a much debated topic. Dr. Phillips and the panel navigate through the issues and underscore why this traditional doctrine is so significant.

Rev. Phillips is pastor of Second Presbyterian Church PCA in Greenville, SC. Nick Batzig is church planter at New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond Hill, GA. Kenneth Kang-Hui has been a long-time friend to Reformed Forum, and he is a member of a PCA church in New York City.

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February 6, 2012

How Brooklyn Got its Groove Back

Kay Hymowitz has a fun and typically well-written City Journal piece on the revitalization of Brooklyn entitled “How Brooklyn Got its Groove Back.”  Folks who enjoy material on cities and the group Richard Florida has called the “creative class” will enjoy this one:

If you’ve been in Park Slope recently, you can probably guess how things turned out for the Lehane house. But you may not know why. How did the Brooklyn of the Lehanes and crack houses turn into what it is today—home to celebrities like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Adrian Grenier, to Michelin-starred chefs, and to more writers per square foot than any place outside Yaddo? How did the borough become a destination for tour buses showing off some of the most desirable real estate in the city, even the country? How did the mean streets once paced by Irish and Italian dockworkers, and later scarred by muggings and shootings, become just about the coolest place on earth? The answer involves economic, class, and cultural changes that have transformed urban life all over America during the last few decades. It’s a story that contains plenty of gumption, innovation, and aspiration, but also a disturbing coda. Brooklyn now boasts a splendid population of postindustrial and creative-class winners—but in the far reaches of the borough, where nary a hipster can be found, it is also home to the economy’s many losers.

Read the whole thing.

It’s exciting to think about the presence of churches in this area.  I’m sure readers will know more about this scene than I do, though I’ve seen some article pop up from time to time on church plants in Williamsburg and other areas (for examples, here’s one, and here’s another).  I’m not one to necessarily connect a healthy gospel presence with automatic transformation of a city–few historical examples crop up on this point–but wherever people are, churches must be.  May those churches help Brooklynites to find the only “groove” that really matters, the Trinitarian symphony of grace playing all over the world.

(Image: Harvey Wang for City Journal)

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February 3, 2012

Things You Should Go To: The 9Marks Weekender

I don’t know if you’ve heard about these, but if you’re interested in entering a full-blown “church lab,” a program that will allow you to savor God’s work to reform one local church–Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C.–then you need to sign up for May’s 9Marks Weekender.

It’s being held from May 17-21, 2012 (update: March is full, but May is still open) at CHBC, just a few blocks behind the Supreme Court.  Here’s a bit more information about this exciting (and often ecclesiologically transformative) event:

Three times a year, 9Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC host around fifty pastors, seminarians, and church leaders from Thursday night to Monday morning for a full-on immersion in the life and inner workings of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, a church committed to living and ministering biblically.

You’ll have box seats for a new members’ class. You’ll be front and center for lectures from Mark Dever on expositional preaching and implementing change. You’ll even go behind closed doors to observe an elders’ meeting. And all that’s just the first half of the weekend.

From leadership to worship to body life and more, it’s all on the table. So bring your questions, and don’t forget to stash some cash for the CHBC bookstall.

See a sample Weekender itinerary

Why should you attend one?  Well, here’s why:

We encourage pastors and church leaders to attend because, just as every Timothy needs a Paul, so every church needs a model. “Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Phil 3:17; 4:9).

You may not implement or even agree with every last thing you see during your visit, but having this biblical model can help develop a more directed movement in the way you serve and lead in your local body.

Then again, maybe you know where to go, but feel clueless about how to get there: “I know I want elders, but what do they do when they meet? I know I need to preach, but how do I go about preparing sermons week in and week out? I know the budget needs work, but I’m no accountant.” The goal of The 9Marks Weekender is to provide an environment in which leaders can observe and discuss the biblical and practical dynamics of nurturing love and holiness in a local church.

Read the whole piece on “Weekenders” over at the 9Marks site.

You don’t need to be a Southern Seminary student or a Southern Baptist or even a Baptist to attend this event.  Regardless of your background, this would be a fantastic way to encounter some really keen thinking on the local church and its polity, its leadership, and the way a healthy church can function.

It would be hard for me to put into words how thankful I am that I did a Weekender and then a CHBC internship (which I also commend to seminarians and future leaders–well worth moving to DC to do!).  Even if you have no prior plans to buy into the “model,” I would encourage you to go, whether you’re from Maine or Chicago or Louisville or Oregon or Brazil or China.  It’s that formative for getting a framework for how to shepherd the members of Christ’s church, the engine of his triumphant, world-defying kingdom.

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February 2, 2012

What a Young Husband Ought to Know

Interesting post from First Things on an old book about what young husbands should know (What a Young Husband Ought to Know (1897, link has free ebook thanks to Scott Lamb) by Lutheran pastor Sylvanus Stall).  Here’s a bit of nineteenth-century wisdom for young men, filtered through Russell Saltzman’s commentary:

This is where I start to like the guy. A young husband, Stall admonishes, should continue to court his wife. He should, in dress and attire around the home, remember he has but one woman to captivate by his “manly charms” (I think he uses that in an ironic sense), and, being a man, it will likely require continuous effort. A father should be prepared and able to care for the children while his wife is out, and a proper one will find time to play with his kids. A real husband should be home after work, avoiding bars and clubs, and he should quiet the house when he gets there so the wife can get an hour’s rest. He should keep the house trim and the yard clean; even a modest house will benefit from male attention.

Read the whole thing.

This is simple stuff, but good stuff.  It can be hard to push away from big projects at work and to reenter home life, but it is necessary that young husbands learn to do this and sublimate their work to the life of the family.  It’s important to get down on the floor with your kids when you get home, hug them, play with them, laugh with them, and generally show them a picture of a father who is kind, strong, attentive, and loving.

Broadly speaking, it is the duty of a young Christian husband and father to image the character of a greater father.  Central to this, I think, is being sacrificial, not selfish, even as our heavenly father gave up his son for our salvation.  Theology informs practice.

Young husband: what patterns are you setting for your future?  Do you willingly push away from work to go home a bit early in order to help your wife?  Do you play with your kids?  Do you give generously of yourself to your wife?  Or do you save the best part of yourself for work?

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February 1, 2012

Shai Linne & Fellow Artists Ask: Should Rappers Serve Churches?

This discussion from a bunch of gifted Lampmode artists like Shai Linne (a fellow Capitol Hill Baptist Church intern!) and Stephen the Levite about the state of Christian rap is quite interesting and entertaining.  Stephen the Levite, the dude with a wild beard, has some thought-provoking comments in several places.  Shai Linne shows his pastoral heart and theological bent.  At around the 16-minute mark, Json thinks out loud about how to handle jealousy, specifically of gospel rappers like Lecrae (whose star has risen like crazy in the last year or two–see his classic, window-shattering “Jesus Muzik”).  A great discussion ensues–an unusually honest one–about how to handle jealousy, kill sin, and be glad for others who prosper.

In general, this was a very encouraging conversation.  It explodes the idea that Christian rappers don’t care about doctrine and personal, Christocentric spirituality.  I’m thankful for these brothers and their work.

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January 31, 2012

The Salon Writer Who Fell in Love with Joel Osteen’s Megachurch

This is one of the more unexpected pieces I’ve come across in a while.  A woman journalist who writes for Salon and other leading publications, secular-minded and skeptically oriented, found herself in Houston and started attending Lakewood Church.  For those who don’t know, this is health-and-wealth preacher Joel Osteen’s congregation.  These are two constituent elements–secular journalist and fluffy Protestantism–that normally do not mix.

Here’s what Alexis Grant (a Colby College grad, bitter rival of my alma mater!) said of her initial enthusiasm for Osteen’s church:

I could hear the music even before entering the stadium, just like during my first visit with my girlfriends. But this time I was the one alone – and on the verge of tears. Even more than being mad at my ex, I was mad at myself for wallowing over a man when life had something exciting in store for me: I was about to leave my job to go backpacking through Africa, a trip I’d dreamed about for years. Three more months and I’d be on the plane, out in the world, free. Why couldn’t I focus on that?

But at Lakewood, emotion pulsed through the crowd. People sang loudly, with both hands outstretched, palms toward their God as if to receive whatever he offered. I put my hands out too, feeling sheepish, glancing around to see if anyone could tell I was a newbie. Soon the whole place was jumping up and down and belting the lyrics, “I’m Still Standing.” (Think worship lyrics; not the Elton John song.) As they waved their arms in the air, I hoped their strength would rub off on me.

She found more “motivation” and less religion at Lakewood:

Yet Lakewood felt more motivational than religious – or maybe that was simply what I wanted it to be. Ironically, the secular spirit that drew me there was exactly why some religious folk criticized Osteen: They complained he wasn’t religious enough.

When Osteen did invoke religious images or drift into Jesus talk, I’d tweak his words so they worked for me. He said things were in God’s hands; I heard it as fate’s hands. He said God would send luck my way; I told myself to make my own luck. By performing this sort of calculus, I managed to convince myself that I wasn’t becoming one of those religious nuts.

Definitely read the whole thing.  It’s nicely-written and quite interesting.

It’s obvious throughout the piece that Grant hears little in the way of traditional evangelical doctrine from Osteen.  The focus, as we would expect, is on finding purpose, being happy, and getting motivated to become one’s best self (driven by God-given “luck”!).  That is obviously a problem of catastrophic proportions, for though this sort of talk sounds fine and even Christian, if divorced from the gospel and not handled with great exegetical care it is spiritually disastrous, mere men-pleasing talk.

It is also heartbreaking to read of Grant’s own search for something greater than herself.  We’re reminded through her story that there are people just like us all around us who act happy and may even think they’re happy but have little means of finding happiness.  You can be well-educated, literarily gifted, young and fresh, thinking the world is your oyster, and have nothing at all.  There are many around us who have had no engagement with a church, have heard no news from another world, and are lost and adrift.

Speaking of “motivation,” that should be all we need to strategize ways to introduce people like Alexis Grant, talented journalist, to a God who does something so much greater than “send luck our way,” but who in Christ becomes sin for us in order that we might pass through this earthly fire and join God himself in the life to come, world without end, amen.

 

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January 30, 2012

Should We Not Read Jonathan Edwards Because He Owned Slaves?

An upcoming event at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School tackles this question, and does so by way of a major lecture by esteemed pastor Thabiti Anyabwile.  This lecture, entitled “Jonathan Edwards and American Racism: Can the Theology of a Slave Owner Be Trusted by Descendants of Slaves?,” will be held this Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1pm CST (2pm EST) on the campus of TEDS.  The event will be live-streamed here.

Two leading African-American Chicago pastors, Charlie Dates and Louis Love, will respond.

Here’s the lecture description:

Jonathan Edwards is arguably the most important theologian that North America has produced. He is a hero to many Christians. Yet he also owned slaves, a fact that has raised important questions about his moral credibility. Should we really be holding Edwards up as a theological role model? Should we be trying to learn from him? These are live questions here at Trinity and beyond. Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile has thought about these questions–as a pastor, an African American, and adherent to Reformed theology. We invite you to listen in as he reflects about them personally, engaging two other African-American pastors and the audience in an edifying installment of the Edwards Center series ‘Jonathan Edwards and the Church,’ moderated by Dr. Sweeney.

Again, make sure to watch the free live-stream of this important lecture.

I am personally very glad that the JEC at TEDS is hosting this conversation and that they have invited three African-American pastors to lead the conversation.  Evangelicalism very much needs this kind of honest and open discussion about racism in our past (I’m glad for pastor John Piper’s Bloodlines as well–see the arresting video).  The fact that Edwards owned slaves revolts me, to be frank, and was the most difficult matter with which I had to square in writing the Essential Edwards Collection with Dr. Sweeney.

My own conviction as a white Christian is that Edwards’s horrific sin should not cause us to ignore his theological voice.  If we were to adopt this kind of posture, we would find ourselves with precious few guides from past ages.  Luther denounced the Jews; Zwingli kept a mistress for some time; John Wesley was a less-than-ideal husband, to say the least.  The list could go on.

None of this means that we take Edwards’s slaveholding lightly.  We must not.  But it does mean that we must tread carefully in disqualifying leaders, not least because we ourselves are no better than they.  We are sinners.  We have gross faults, too.  Is this not one of Scripture’s greatest lessons?  Sin is in our house.  It is not only in our neighbor’s, as the log in our eye would obscure us from seeing.

All of us have sin; all of us need Christ, and forgiveness from our brothers and sisters.  There will be no weeping and anger in heaven, but it is a sweet thing indeed to think that there, Jonathan Edwards has recognized that the slaves he held, those who knew Christ, were not his property.  They, like all humanity–saved or not–were not his possession.  They were his kin, his spiritual kin, and Jesus has bestowed on them a dignity that the world denied them.

One hopes that this conversation at TEDS will lead evangelicals to continue to realize just how strong our union in Christ is, to meditate more on how great is the bond between us, much as our past suggests–to our shame–otherwise.

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