In 2006 a movie came out that quickly became popular among Christians. Facing the Giants tells the story of an unbelieving football coach who struggles with a losing team and a bad marriage. Along the way he is saved and through changes in his life his marriage is renewed and his football team goes on to be undefeated.

The undertone of this movie is that if you are saved everything in your life will get better. You will be happier, your wife will get pregnant, your football team will win.

I was reminded of this when reading the recent edition of our state Baptist newspaper. Below is a snippet:

When the East Prairie Eagles defeated archrival Charleston 46-21 on Oct. 17, it was their first victory in Charleston in a half-century. The first words East Prairies coach Jason Aycock heard were from his pastor, Jon Archie, who yelled, “This is exactly what happens when your coach gets saved.”

The Bible makes no promises about a person’s physical success once he is saved. Salvation secures a relationship with God, forgiveness of sin, a regenerated life, and hope that transcends the grave. Nowhere are we promised that salvation will bring happy marriages or winning teams.

Granted, once a person is saved they may well begin to live their own lives better and so sew seed for a better relationship with others. But it always comes across as distasteful, unbiblical, and even deceptive when some claim that being a Christian will bring success in all areas of life. These are not just the name-it-and-claim-it folks. Facing the Giants was popular among many Evangelicals across the board even though what it offered was a more subtle form of prosperity theology.

If you want a successful life, serve Christ. Follow him faithfully. Measure success by how well you have yielded to him, living in the example of his Son. If physical success follows, praise the Lord! That is a cause for rejoicing, but it is not a promise. Winning football teams is not exactly what happens when your coach gets saved.

As if I didn’t struggle enough with the weight of preaching, the Pyro folks have to go make it worse. Be sure to check out Dan Phillips’ post Carpe Diem.

This may be the only time they’ve been in a church, about to hear someone who claims to believe the Word, the Gospel. Maybe they’re there because a friend or relative has prayed for them for months, for years, for decades. Finally, they’re in a (professedly) Christian church, intending to listen to whatever a (professedly) Christian preacher is about to say. It is literally a critical moment, a moment of crisis, of judgment. Angels attend! The Triune God is there! Endless ages will reverbrate with the impact of what happens next. These people are accountable, you are accountable. All eyes are on you.

The NY Times has a piece examining Evangelical growth during times of economic distress. I really wish they had chosen some different church leaders to interview. Give it a read and see if some of the marketspeak doesn’t make you cringe. An example:

But why the evangelical churches seem to thrive especially in hard times is a Rorschach test of perspective.

For some evangelicals, the answer is obvious. ”We have the greatest product on earth,” said the Rev. Steve Tomlinson, senior pastor of the Shelter Rock Church.

Truth is, in hard times people’s distractions and illusions begin to fail. We are so good at ignoring what lies in front of us. But when hard times hit it becomes harder to ignore truth and people begin to realize the only thing they can turn to is what they should have turned to all along. I pray, though, that churches would be bold enough and faithful enough to offer the full gospel and not watered down marketspeak. Jesus is not a product to give a try for 60 days. He is Creator and Lord who demands faithfulness.

One of the reasons Christians defend traditional views of marriage is that marriage paints for us a picture of Christ and his church – the union of the bride with the bridegroom. God’s organization of marriage is such that the way the husband and wife interact paints a picture of the way God interacts with his church. Mixing gender roles distorts that picture. Redefining marriage destroys it entirely.

But this is not a post about marriage, it’s a post about taking care of widows and orphans. People have rightly criticized evangelicals for focusing too much on things like homosexuality and too little on things like feeding the hungry. I would argue – though the example of my life is woefully inadequate to back up this argument – that we should devote as much time defending the oppressed, visiting prisoners, and taking care of widows and orphans as we spend trying to preserve biblical institutions in society. Both present a picture of God, a reflection of God’s grace to the world.

Consider who you are, how miserable your state, how hopeless and in need of the absolute, free grace of another to bring you salvation. And then Christ came. He transformed you, brought you to himself, cleansed every sin, and brought you into his eternal kingdom.

The question then is, what are you doing in your life that presents to the world what Christ did for you? This, I think, is one reason it is so important for us to help those in need. There are other very good reasons to do such things (God said to, that pretty much settles the argument) but one motivation for Christians is we know every time we feed the hungry or clothe the poor, showing concern for the physical as well as spiritual well being of another human being, we reflect God in the world, shining his light through our good deeds

Let’s not mistake church attendance for helping people in need. Throwing money in the offering plate is also not enough. The Father of the fatherless, the protector of widows, wants us to show his true character to the world. How are you displaying his mercy and grace and generosity to those who are in desperate need of your help?

While hunting for more info on Charles Finney (blame it on these guys) I turned to Christianity and Western Thought, vol 2, by Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett. I came across the following, talking about various revivalist movements such as that by Finney. These words could easily be applied to movements of our own day:

These and numerous other groups often grew out of a conviction that existing denominations, doctrines, and practices stifled Christian vitality. Though not always explicitly stated, the twin concerns that drove these movements are faith in individual judgment (or stated in the negative, distrust of institutions) and a belief that the past stands in the way of the future.

While often envious of the massive appeal of such movements, the guardians of tradition pointed to dangers inherent in revivalism. First, these movements placed heavy emphasis on the experiential aspects of faith. Therefore, church practices such as catechetical instruction, reliance on an educated pastorate and the sacraments were downplayed, redefined, or eliminated. Doctrine, creed and confession were given little attention. Second, such movements led to a proliferation of new sects. To the traditionalists, sectarianism was one of the major problems faced by the church universal and was the natural outcome of abandoning practices and doctrines that formerly provided some level of unity. A third danger was individualism, in which a person’s private experience of the divine became the grid through which religious doctrine and practice was judged, rather than the other way around.

(pp 247-248)

Why do we involve children in church? What is our motivation behind giving children various roles in the worship and life of the church? I have in mind things such as children’s choir or plays like the Christmas pageants that usually involve mostly children.

One thing that tends to bother me is that it seems many churches involve children for the Aww factor. Children are cute and children do funny things. Many times children are involved mostly to warm the hearts of the adults of the congregation. This is not a bad thing but it should not be a primary motivation.

What should our motivation be for involving children in church? Instruction, teaching, and growth in Christ. The value of a children’s program should not be determined by whether or not it leads children to do cute or fun things but whether or not it helps them grow in the knowledge of God. Do the Christmas pageants and the children’s choirs but do them with the primary interest of helping the children grow. Put the kids in front of the adults but do it to help them experience the richness of life in the church. Perhaps even have them do some less visible but greatly valuable things – visit nursing homes; see older people in their homes; write letters to missionaries, etc. Maybe even put them in front of people to demonstrate their knowledge of hard things, such as having them learn and recite one of the many catechisms out there.

May your children’s ministry be completely filled with a desire to glorify God by leading children deeper into a knowledge of him. May your children’s ministry be protected from the temptation to simply provide warm moments for adults and fun moments for kids.

I have finally finished reading Doug Pagitt’s book A Christianity Worth Believing. I’m not yet ready with a review, I haven’t even decided what form it will take. I profoundly disagree with Pagitt on just about every issue he addresses – and he addresses a lot – so my normal approach to reviewing would be a little difficult. But I wanted to throw out one observation from my reading.

The ideas Pagitt frequently argues against are a distortion of biblical Christianity. His foe is also my foe. He presents those ideas as representing traditional Christianity but I would argue that it is not. There are, however, people who believe and promote the kinds of things he argues against. Many of those people may well be in our own churches. Not all of the notions Pagitt opposes are distortions of the truth but enough of them are to make me concerned about the ideas and thinking people are carrying away from our churches.

Doctrine matters. Theology matters. Solid biblical teaching really matters. It matters because many people are left with half notions and hints at the truth but have not been guided in understanding the whole council of God. They have bits and pieces of the truth but, to paraphrase Sen. John Edwards, 99% of the truth is still not the truth. In the case of theology, 99% right would be outstanding. But many people are walking around with 25% or so of biblical truth. The result is the kinds of distorted theology Pagitt describes as traditional Christianity.

Much of this is the responsibility of the individual. People are accountable for how they study and learn about God. But churches do bear a large measure of responsibility. Churches cannot be content to teach shallow doctrine or half notions. All of Scripture must be presented to the church and it must be presented with clarity and depth. Take people deep into the word and there give them a solid foundation for their thinking. Only then will they be able to distinguish between the voice of our good shepherd and the voice of the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

Church leaders, what kind of people are you raising up your church members to be? Members, what are you doing to help other Christians grow in their faith and knowledge of Christ?

John Piper has a great post called Test Revival With Doctrine. The occasion for the post is the ridiculous “revival” in Lakeland, FL. How are we to judge such things? By holding them up to sounds biblical doctrine and teaching. We need doctrine in our churches otherwise people will not know how to judge whether a thing is good or bad.

Here is Piper:

Our test for every Lakeland that comes along should first be doctrinal and expositional. Is this awakening carried along by a “love for the truth” and a passion to hear the whole counsel of God proclaimed?

The Pyro Phil writes about reforming Evangelicalism (or not). A couple of quotes:

My strong suspicion is that the movement [evangelicalism] is well and truly dead, and we shouldn’t mistake the bloated and expanding size of its corpse, or its occasional spontaneous post-mortem twitches, for signs of real life.

What I am eager to see preserved and perpetuated are the sound, biblical ideas that sparked the evangelical and fundamentalist movements, not the corrupt cultures that ultimately overwhelmed them and led to their predictable demise.

The Pyromaniacs folks, namely Dan Phillips, have a great post up titled Things a pastor isn’t: The Minister. The subject is whether or not the pastor is the minister of the church, the one in the church expected to do ministry on behalf of the people.

This is one of my great struggles as I look for a church. It seems to me to be far too common, particularly in the smaller churches, that the pastor is the one expected to do all of the outward ministry of the church. He is the one that teaches and preaches. He is the one that does all the hospital visits. He is the one that goes to visit the shut-ins and the visitors. He is supposed to be the one reaching out to the lost. Etc, etc. Others might go with him from time to time but the pastor is the one expected to “do the work of the ministry.”

As Dan points out in his post, while the pastor does indeed participate in the ministry, his primary calling is not to “do ministry” so much as “equip the saints to do ministry”. That is, the pastor as a Christian does ministry as all the saints do ministry. The pastor as pastor is called to equip the saints to better minister. When a church has an expectation that the pastor will be doing more ministry than everyone else the church has a wrong view of ministry, the pastor’s calling, and their own calling as believers. If anything I believe the example in Scripture is of the body taking up more on the work so those called to preach and teach can focus their time on just that work. Consider how and why deacons were established. It was so the leaders of the church could focus on the ministry of the word – that is, teaching and preaching and spreading the gospel in a society that had not heard of Christ:

Acts 6:1-7

6:1 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (ESV)

Waiting tables is not slighted in the passage, the point is that the Twelve were not called to that work. Far from being expected to be the ones taking care of the physical needs of the body (I believe the work would include most of the things I listed above), a new class of people were established precisely to fill this function. Though it is not mentioned in this passage, it is widely recognized that the office of deacon is the one that carries out this task. In too many of our churches deacons equals leadership of the church. Deacons were never established as a leading body but as a serving body, ministering to the needs of the church so those called to teach and preach could focus on that work.

How does all of this play out in the church today? I’m not sure yet. But I pray God leads me to a church where the balance is healthily and properly established.