What is Neo-Puritanism?

I suppose the sub-title might be “And why should you care?” Shouldn’t we simply be Christians? Absolutely—just like Joseph Smith. Point made. Now, let’s get back to our discussion. The Puritans are probably the most maligned group of people in a long line of tarred and feathered villains of the Plantation. These are the guys who wore more black than Johnny Cash at a Raider game and chained their women to posts for sport so that the lumber would stay warm for the witches. Or at least that’s what our teachers told us. And you believed them. Even though you have long since discovered that nearly everything else your teachers told you about all the dead white guys, the flat earth and the near stars—all that was historical revisionism. But is it faintly possible that there might be some similarity to the Plantation’s disdain for the Founding Fathers and their disdain for those first few boat-loads of white dudes a few centuries back? Think about it. Now in order to see what could be so “Neo” about Puritanism, we will have to take a closer look at what the originals were really like.

Getting right to the core of things, a Puritan was a member of the Church of England in the late sixteenth century who perceived that Elizabeth’s Protestantism was no less of a compromise than her father’s (Henry VIII). Unlike the Separatists (known by us as the Pilgrims), the Puritans initially sought to remain in the church and reform it from within. A handful of them—actually over twenty-thousand crossed the sea with Jonathan Winthrop a generation later—saw the possibilities of the New World more appealing to be that shining city on a hill that Jesus talked about. At the heart of the Puritan worldview was an utter allegiance to the Scriptures above all and a thorough commitment to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty over every area of life. Thus, the Puritans were Calvinistic to the marrow, though, unlike Theodore Beza and the succeeding generations back on the continent, their Reformed theology was learned strictly from the Bible. That is not to say that they did not have their own developing systematic theologies. And the greatest theologians of the next hundred years were all Puritans—Perkins, Owen, Watson, Burroughs, Boston, Baxter, etc.

If there was something distinctive about Puritanism that sets it apart from so much of modern Christendom, it is this: The Puritans were persuaded that the chief business of the teaching of the church was to prepare the soul for heaven, yet not in the way of Pietism, that separated the soul from the covenant community. The great weakness of Puritanism, we are told, was in their retreat from the cities—at least, it was an effective retreat (no doubt, they desired to construct a culture that could function and triumph in an urban setting)—or, to put it in today’s terminology, their soul-work was less “missional” than it ought to have been. It may be argued that their flight from a crumbling Europe was a charge to the mission field filled with what we now call Native Americans. Be that as it may. Neo-Puritanism differs from its ancestor only in this, that we have the hindsight to correct Modernism and Postmodernism at its roots, and to display their alternative in the city. Neo-Puritanism seeks the way of man’s chief end—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever—in the place where the movers and shakers of the next generation will be. This is how Christianity overran the Roman Empire, by worshiping in the cities, and leaving the country-side to the Pagan. Ever since the Enlightenment (1700s), however, the evangelical Christian has abandoned the city and retreated to the suburbs and country-sides, and has lost influence. Why? What is the connection? It is that if you win the city, you win the culture: since it is the urban institutions that man the nervous system for the rest of society. What are all of the other world religions doing (including Christians in the non-West)? They have their best and their brightest worshiping in the cities. As the city goes, the culture goes. Neo-Puritanism conceives of the church as a subversive, invisible, expanding city that ministers to those who are weak—those who no one else will serve—and it witnesses our faith to those of influence, knowing that our worldview cannot lose in that conversation.

To set forth the basic ingredients of Neo-Puritanism would take a paragraph, though explaining them to anyone unfamiliar with historic theology would take a book, which is why I wrote one called Doctrine & Division. Though it’s not a description of this theology, per se, it is a sort of ground-clearing work that critiques the current landscape to make way for such a description. I am adding a tenth chapter before I send it to the publisher. At any rate, at its most foundational level, this theology is a reunification of the Realist philosophical underpinnings (which Edwards would have undoubtedly stressed as he charted the future course of Princeton University—he never got to, as he died of a smallpox vaccination upon arrival) with Reformed theology. Realist and Reformed together—in other words, Christianity—have never been allowed to walk hand-in-hand together in modern Western culture on an institutional level, and the resurgence of Calvinistic orthodoxy in the current generation seems unaware that its basic assumptions are a patchwork from the debris of Kant’s Critique. R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries works off of the synthesis we are suggesting—Realist and Reformed—but the vast majority of the “young, restless, and reformed” do not seem terribly interested in those “abstract” issues. We seem blissfully unaware that the basic assumptions about thinking that the Emergent Church holds are no different than the Perspectivalism that the young, conservative Reformed hip church-planters hold. Part of the reason for this is the sheer inability to attend to didactic literature as opposed to more emotive-engaging prose. Very well then, let me summarize my article with a parable.

A very nice little church and a very smutty adult video shop built next to each other on top of a very large sinkhole.

No, that’s it. That’s the whole parable.

Pardon My French, but I'm DISTURBED

It was Shakespeare who said that “the pen is mightier than the sword.” I have always found this to be a concrete description of the way that reality works, not at all some metaphorical rah-rah speech for intellectuals to console themselves for not doing anything real in the world. And so I was especially looking forward to this years Desiring God National Conference on “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God.” Before I ever got to the material, I was treated instead to a showdown in the blogosphere between the usual assortment of Fighting Fundies and their new “Axis of Evil,” Piper-Driscoll-and Paul Tripp—Paul who? Well, for those who are not familiar with his work, Tripp is a bit of a counseling authority in the Reformed world, and his books War of Words, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hand, as well as his brother Ted’s book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart, have been spoken well of by most people I know. In a little sound-byte-size interview to promote the conference, Tripp repeatedly used the “s” word as an example of profane speech versus edifying speech, and used his children (presumably grown up now) as a case study. Long story short, his assignment at the conference was The War of Words: Getting to the Heart for God’s Sake. The upshot was that we live in the mundane, and words are the power to transcend that and live a life that matters. So I watched the promo before I watched anything else. In the story he relates, he remembers his kids responding to his discourse on that particular word by using the word themselves (i.e. “I think this conversation is “s*@#,” were his son’s thoughts.) As I listened carefully, my thought process went as follows:

1. Hmm—he is saying it a lot.
2. Hmm—is that exactly the reaction I would have toward my kids in that circumstance? (i.e. If my goal was to allow them their “cultural space” in order to show them a better way, would my laughter with them have been sustained through the whole of the conversation, etc.)?
3. Passages like Philippians 3:3 and Isaiah 64:6 are certainly relevant examples of strong biblical language here, but Steve Camp’s response on his blog (cf. http://stevenjcamp.blogspot.com/2008/09/paul-tripp-ing-likes-to-say-s-word-has.html ) to that objection was technically correct if the goal is to prepare people’s soul for the most powerful words.
4. So, I’m disturbed.
5. Wait a minute—disturbed—am I? Disturbed: that’s a word too. What does it mean?
6. Come to think of it: How disturbed am I right now? I am ordinarily much more disturbed with how Fundamentalism has eroded both the Christian mind and the Christian’s cultural mandate—leading to the vast majority of what is wrong with the institutional rot in present Evangelicalism.

In other words, where is the sense of proportion here? Please do not misinterpret this. How much attention should be given to profane objects or concepts as the object lesson of the difference between the holy and the profane is a debatable matter and probably a good discussion. I just don’t want the Fundies to be the arbiters of that discussion. For instance, I would not have said things the way Tripp did, and I don’t want to be a part of condoning anyone getting the wrong idea from the way the words were used. In fact, I suppose that I could write a whole paper about the objectivity of words and the Lordship of Christ over every single one of them that role off our tongues (or keypads). But there are quite a few things at stake here. And so I want to be careful that I do not make the word “disturbed” more profane than the “s” word.

One of the unspoken threads that ran through the conference is that, at a very real level, the mundane is the profane. In light of eternity, nothing is more profane than the mundane. It’s about time some Reformed leaders went in that direction! But how does my usage of the word “disturbed” become more profane than our culture’s choice of dirty words? This would be done by inflating my own dealing with words, in relation to my passion for the eternal things behind those words. The biggest casualty in this general loss of proportion is manly speech from the pulpit that cannot say the same thing that Jesus and the disciples did when calling men to their rightful King. In this way, the Victorian English and the high-brows of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth-century were the most profane people who ever lived, as they bowed and curtsied and shed tears over Wagner, while they heated up the ovens for human flesh. And make no mistake: that is usually how these things relate. Those with the tightest wads usually stash the most corpses.

Because of the lack of eternal proportion that Fundamentalism has cultivated, the vast majority of Christians cannot stomach to be in any conversation with unbelieving potty mouths, and, if we’re honest, we all know why. Our skin is crawling because the lewdness of speech is a form of polemic that makes the Christian subconsciously cower out of any real interaction. Anyone who doesn’t see this has probably never been in any significant cultural warfare—especially at the college campus—where the designation “Prude” is much more significant than “Incorrect.” Incidentally, it also turns back genuine seekers who run into Christians who are itching for want of a bow or a curtsy from pagans who, for all we can be assured, want to kill us anyway. There will be time and place for showing our youth a better way to speak, and to instruct that people only use foul speech when they are not witty enough to reach for something deeper and stronger. All in due time.

We are in a war to rescue the word from the terrorists of Image, yet the word was first captured and sold to them by the hijackers of Practice. There is a long history to this “humiliation of the word.” The answer, of course, is not to match dung slung for dung. The answer is to carpet bomb the crowd with a steady diet of truth claims that is high enough to be invincible but low enough to bring the mob from what is both similar and dissimilar between pop rocks and prime rib. Just as a beautiful woman who is still clothed (there still are some) has the allure of mystery, so a Christian who can have a beer, throw a hail-Mary further than he can pray one, and hold out in a gutter conversation without changing his mind-diapers after every sentence, is a curiosity to an unbeliever. Language is analogical and so must our levels of comfort. In this way, the missionary is really like an intelligence officer or part of a special ops invasion. He will rub shoulders with some sordid characters, just as he was and is. He must, as Kipling said in his famous poem about growing up as a man, “walk with kings nor lose the common touch.” If we do not grasp this, then we will never be world Christians because we’ll spend all day shivering and waiting for the “ly” at the end of a mere word.

To Vote or Not to Vote?

Actually, that is not the question. Nor is the question the lesser of two evils. Those who know better know very well that another victory for Rockefeller Republicanism is merely the latest drop in the IV of our slow march toward global totalitarianism. It may buy us another half decade of time, but at the cost of a potential wedge into a real, substantive reversal. Much like the nobles in Braveheart, we must choose between one more amicable concession or else a much more threatening, courageous step forward. And so we content ourselves with another lesser evil. We are unaware that the ground behind us is inching ever closer to the cliff. The same thing must be said, incidentally, to all those who talk so romantically about secession from the union. Not yet, my friends. The only way out is forward. Such a step out of the mainstream will not be without its own cost—just as everything else worth doing in life comes at a price.

We are not suggesting that the only option is to vote for Ron Paul, or some third party’s candidate in a few weeks. What we are saying is that, no matter who the Christian votes for, we have to stop treating politics like some disassociated item on an all-you-can-eat buffet table, as if there are no clear, straight inferences from theology that demand right reasoning in the public square. This is just as unbiblical as to inflate the role of politics in the Christian life. Both extremes—political messianism and pietism—are unacceptable, given the freedom that we have been granted by God, and the relative peace and prosperity in which we live.

If a particular believer is persuaded (as I would like the opportunity to persuade you) that the welfare state is designed to spitefully destroy the inner-city and the immigrant and subject them to chains in exchange for their permanent vote, that abortion is the taking of a life that is made in God’s image, that the plantation school system has succeeded in dumbing down upwards of four generations now who are disconnected from the intellectual tools requisite for the maintenance of civil liberty, and that the present United States government is a rogue institution in violation of the ninth and tenth amendments of the Constitution, and its perpetrators should be brought to justice—if you are a conscientious believer who is convinced of those facts, then that same conscience dictates that you act accordingly. No people in history have been granted so many blessings and have done so little to preserve them. That is to our everlasting shame.

The opposite track from thinking in “bits and pieces,” as Schaeffer called it, for four solid years, and then pulling the lever for the walking slogan with the ‘R’ one Tuesday afternoon, is for the church to begin cultivating a unified program of education that moves from the university down through adult education (Sunday school and weeknight Bible studies), then down into Christian schools, homeschooling curriculum and networks, as well as calculated infiltration onto the secular campuses. When we speak of a unified education, we are speaking of the inculcation of our worldview. And there are many good beginners’ books on the subject that will help any layman who wants to take the first small steps in that direction. Just to name a few: Voddie Baucham’s Family-Driven Faith, Charles Colson’s God and Government, Al Mohler’s Culture Shift, Nancy Pearcy’s Total Truth, James Sire’s The Universe Next Door, R. C. Sproul’s Defending Your Faith, are some good places to start.

Here is the catch, though: short of a consensus on doctrines—including often divisive doctrines—such unified worldview inculcation is just another pipe dream. That is what the parachurch groups do not seem to understand. There is a reason why God ordained the local church to be this advancing army. Unless we are permitted to think coherently about the biggest, most central, eternal things, then we cannot unify our knowledge about the diversity of other things. That is the way worldviews work—the foundations come before the shingles, the moons revolve around the planets, which, in turn, revolve around the sun. And the church is “the pillar and bulwark of truth” [1 Tim. 3:15]—the biggest truths concerning eternity and redemption and the kingdom. These truths are the stuff of doctrine—God, Christ, Scripture, Salvation and the Second Coming. Try as they may, the various cultural movements that arose from Neo-Evangelicalism’s attempt to reduce dogma to the lowest common denominator could never have succeeded in anything but to create a lot of sound and fury that left the core of the mind simmering on the backburner along with those “backburner” doctrines for “theological pin-heads.” So long as culture warriors mock the monks who asked how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, their own heads will remain the same size and no genuine worldview can ever emerge. In other words, so long as we think that social justice is bigger than justification by faith alone, no rational public philosophy can occur. The biggest things in realty shape the smaller things. The smaller things are about the bigger things. As C. S. Lewis put it, “Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”

Beyond the convictions we may feel about domestic politics, we also have to understand that the various enemies of what is left of Western Civilization hold the last nail for its coffin. I am pointing this out merely to remind that the good times are running out fast. What kind of a faith are the churches cultivating in the life of our sons and daughters that will face such enemies? When are we going to get more alarmed at that prospect than the “offensive” implications of that last question? Men are not men when the only thing that will make them excited is outrage at the crude interruption of their suburban bread and circuses that these spiritual realities bring.

WHY I AM WRITING AN “E-NEWSLETTER”

Many of you have written from out of town expressing appreciation and inquiring about current or future projects. Those contacts have been encouraging to be sure, but I would be remiss if there was no honest expression of where things stand. Getting right to the point, while American Christianity suffers under an effeminate, anti-intellectual malaise, the Treasure Valley in southwestern Idaho may be the ultimate microcosm of that phenomenon. There is not much spiritual health here. It’s the sort of place people move to get away from it all. Yet the consumers of apologetic, doctrinal, and other instructional material are disproportionately high. If we believe the numbers, then there is a significant chunk of most churches where thinking is actually a priority, but where the sources are expected to come from outside the local congregation. Thousands of believers in every town now treat their “meat” as a kind of product that can be disassociated from the life of the church, and those who minister in the parachurch justify this by saying that they are “equipping the body” more effectively from their independent positions. The trouble with this is that the whole reason to engage in parachurch “thinking and doing” is that the local church is ill-equipped and, quite frankly, uninterested; but then who are these equippers equipping if such activity is not a churchy thing? When does all this artillery translate into a sustained military campaign? The more one looks at it, the more the parachurch, whether it has intended to or not, looks a little bit like a pyramid scheme. It simply creates an army of consumers and producers, hacks and peddlers, who will always be disaffected from the local church. In part, I am writing to you to recognize this, put a halt to it, and recapture your passion for the local church, no matter where you live in the country (or the world).

A recent bit of reminiscing has also gotten me writing. I just got finished reading a book entitled Upstream: The Ascendancy of Modern Conservatism, by Alfred Regnery. The author is the son of the founder of Regnery Publishing that printed many a conservative tome, and so was well qualified to write such an account of the movement. One particular thing that struck me was the power of a handful of clear thinkers—and even clearer communicators—to take profound truths from the ivory tower to man on the street. If this can be done for a temporal movement concerning things which are passing away, how much more can (ought) it be done by those aflame with the Spirit to take the whole of the biblical worldview seriously. And to do so where it was meant to be done: the local church [cf. Eph. 3:9-11]. It pains me to recall all those nights on the college campus spent solving all the world’s problems—though it was a pipe dream—and to know that it was the closest thing any of us will ever see to some of the scenes in the book of Acts. That scene should be true about the church.

Finding other comrades in arms may be the biggest initial challenge. Like any of the more everyday elements of the church, this requires our time, our talent, and our treasure. But if we care about these things then we are obliged to support the cause. To be a Christian is to be a world changer—each person in his or her own vocation. If only a dozen rebel thinkers could start a movement of ideas that eventually captured the majority of the American electorate, then why shouldn’t a dozen or more Christian thinkers do the same? A number of objections just popped into my mind, which are easy enough to anticipate. There is no time or space to answer them all here; but one such answer does move me very nicely into my last point about why an e-newsletter. Whatever peculiarities of secondary doctrines each reader may have, I take it that one thing we can all agree on is this: that anti-intellectualism in the church is scandalous and harmful. Much study over the past eight years has gone into discovering the causes of that condition. I want to make that case in little sound-bytes, as that’s all I have at the moment. I want to suggest to you—and beg your patience to be convinced—that God’s design for the local church is still authoritative; and that design is universal. The church is the city of God expanding within the city of man. Nothing is left out, and no one is exempt.

Is God an Urban-Strategist? Are You?

The following discussion questions were written by me to go with a talk given by Tim Keller, entitled “Joy in the City” (based on Acts 8:4-8). The audio can be found on Monergism's audio links, listed by speaker. When you get to Keller's collection, just scroll down a bit.


1. What were the two main, physical differences between the first century church and the American church of today?

2. Do you know roughly when Christians started to retreat from the cities? Do you know roughly when Christianity began to retreat within the various cultural institutions?

Keller’s basic outline:

God is an “urban strategist”

I. Fact of this Strategy
II. Learning of this Strategy
III. Dynamic of this Strategy
IV. Method of this Strategy

3. We evangelize an area (a surrounding culture) by going to its biggest city. If the city goes pagan, where does the culture go? If the city goes Christian, where does the culture go? So, who has taken the city in our day?

4. How did the church in Acts learn to get back in the city? Specifically, in cities who had “dirty people”? How does this “lesson” directly apply to today? Or our near future?

5. What does Keller mean by being “theologically scattered”? What people-group have your ultimate allegiance? What is so liberating about this?

6. God is saying what the old Fram oil-filter commercials said: “Pay me now, or pay me later!” In what exact sense will we “pay later” in the cities?

7. What is the power that these Christians had in returning to the cities? It can’t be mere duty. Where does this love come from? What does this love look like?

8. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch shows us about who we get to touch in the city and the story that we get to tell loudly—that we don’t get to tell the same way in the suburbs. The city is cursed, cut off, without descendents—So was Christ! For those in the city.

9. What do the healings in Acts show us about our mission? Is there a right order in “word and deed”?

Introducing Covenant Theology

Instead of the regular shepherding notes this week, I thought I would give everyone a heads-up on what will be Paul's main subject matter from the middle of Chapter 3 to the end of Chapter 4 in Galatians. The name that theologians tack on to it is "Covenant Theology." Seeing it in an extended passage of Scripture as Paul sets it forth makes it rather difficult for people to poke at as some "arbitrary," "speculative," "systematic" category. Here are the main points:

1. God is a promise-keeping God. His faithfulness is not rooted in anything going on down here, but in his very nature as a covenanting God. There is even perfect agreement within the three Persons of the Trinity on who does what in Creation, Redemption, and Restoration.

2. There are only two kinds of religion in the world; only two that are possible, really: relating to God by His promises, or, relating to God by your performance.

3. In the redemptive history of the Bible, these two religions are represented in two main covenants that weave through the whole fabric of Scripture. Theologians have given these names as well: The Abrahamic and the Mosaic Covenant. Their main features are as follows

• 
  
  Through Abraham - grace, unconditional, promise, to spiritual descendents, blessing


• 
  
  Through Moses - law, conditional, performance, to physical descdendents, blessing/cursing

Of course, this all brings up a lot of questions like: Can you give me some verses? or, Does this mean I have to baptize my infant or become a postmillenialist and purchase a bunker in northern Idaho? or, How does Jesus as the Mediator fit into this? or, How does this handle the distinctions between law and gospel or between Old and New Covenants? or, OK, I recognize those story lines, but why do theologians have to start naming and boxing off everything? or just flat out--So what?

All good questions. That's why I look forward to preaching through this section of Galatians. I hope it whets your appetite as well.

By the way, the best resource I know of on the issue is Michael Horton's book God of Promise.

Shepherding Notes 4

“Raveling” the Core Group

According to my spellchecker—yes—it’s a word. If “unraveling” means the coming apart of the ball of string, then think of “raveling” as winding it tightly together: The tighter the better. Different circumstances call for different people and different measures. But if you believe everything you read in church growth or church planting books, you may get the impression that there is only one way to conceive of a core group. There are many problems with this unhelpful bit of “expertise,” but for our purposes the trouble is that it doesn’t fit our own experience—or most other people’s for that matter. Ordinarily, when church strategists speak of core groups they usually have in mind those key players in the founding of a church whose gifting and commitment define the ability of the church to get off the ground.

I am going to be using this term the same way, except that I will be assuming some things from biblical theology—i.e. the preaching of the word of God creates and shapes the church—that are usually not assumed anymore. One thing that all core groups must have in common is the building of a critical mass that can sustain the life of a church. One thing they ought to have in common (but mostly do not) is that this critical mass is intentionally built not merely to survive but to succeed and keep growing. The timetables and the hardness of these cores vary because more foundational things vary—vision of the leader, ability to articulate it, ability to gather (especially to gather young men who have a pulse), the energy level of the culture of the community, etc.—and therefore the timetables and “hardness projections” of that core have to flex in relation to how things are going.

How this ‘Raveling’ Shapes the Preaching

What about a church that attempts to reclaim doctrinal preaching and reassert a taste for revival? What would such a core-building look like? Well, the first thing it would look like (and this may be the easiest thing to forget if the leader does not remind, remind, remind) is that the blueprint that is more foundational than the core itself is 1. that doctrinal preaching must be heard by all Christians (and it’s not) and 2. that revival is what the church exists to pursue (and it’s not). Hence, whatever the core is up to, it exists because God must be glorified in this way, not the other way around! If we are committed to such a truth, then we will not easily and quickly throw up our hands when things go wrong and say, “Well, I guess that wasn’t meant to be!” or always asking “Is it working?” as if the calling was dependent on the way the world defines results.

As to the substance of the preaching in this core-building stage, the preacher has no choice but to preach to the core before he can preach to the community. In one line of thinking, one does not have a core until he converts some in the community. But this represents a low view of Christian maturity—as if the fresh zeal in a new convert to serve is the same thing as a disciple who is ready to lead other souls. We cannot shepherd until we have first been given sheep, and we cannot speak of “we shepherds” unless we have already been sheep. This is really an extension of what Driscoll said in The Good Soldier video:

“People walking in tend to think of the church
planter as a pastor. He’s not yet a pastor; he’s trying to build a church so
that he can be a pastor. A church planter has a different skill set; he’s got a
different mission that he has to be on, to gather men—to gather the best men he
can find, to gather men who are willing to be trained, willing to repent,
willing to learn—to learn both doctrine and practice.”[1]

Granted, if someone absolutely feels called to an area but has no Christian connections until he goes out and gets converts from the streets, Amen! But if you have the luxury to build a team of committed believers as a missionary team to then go out into the community, that seems preferable. But then here comes the snag: This would be ideal if this team of missionaries were going off to Burma or some place where everyone going would know why they’re there. The dilemma comes when we plant a church in suburban America, saying that we’re a missionary to our culture, but because we have to spend so much time resuscitating members of the core group who can’t remember why they’re there, it creates a confused timetable in casting vision. On the one hand, the planter has to preach the mission to the core. On the other hand, things are taking a lot longer in the suburbs so he has to start bringing the mission to the lost.

Who we are preaching to also depends upon a philosophy of ministry choice—Is Sunday morning preaching primarily for the discipling of the saints or the evangelization of the lost? My own study of the New Testament convinces me that it is for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, though this does not in any way exclude the evangelistic function of the Sunday service. There are many reasons to make the Sunday gathering about equipping and small groups (which should also equip, by the way) and other outreaches about evangelism. Moreover, if the church does its job with its disciples, then evangelism is the natural outworking throughout the week. Now you have an army of evangelists who can be much more effective at it in relational contexts!

In year 1 at The Well, we went through Titus, Haggai, and Jude, as well as a topical series on mission—all of which was aimed at a “Core Group Phase,” knowing that for us, that first phase would mean healing for weary saints and basic discipling for first year Christians who we knew were with us anyway. That was intentional. We knew that the ordinary “core group phase” that you really need to plant a church wouldn’t happen until Year 2. Sure enough, as the second year was ready to dawn on us, virtually everyone started asking questions like “What can I do?” Restoration happened—now the real equipping for mission can begin. In year 2, we have started an expositional series in Galatians. It will probably go to the end of the year and then we may do something topical on mission again to further drive home the vision. Then we can really start to preach to the community. The point here is that you can’t start by “preaching to the community” if that means giving enough milktoast to attract and have a bigger “core group.” That’s easier to be sure. But the core will be a loosely-bundled together bigger crowd who can’t help the planter lead. And it will just turn into another seeker-friendly sinkhole faster than the leader can pull it back.

How this ‘Raveling’ Stretches Us Pastorally

The next challenge moves beyond the preacher and to all the undershepherds. Two of the more well-known Puritan classics should be read on this point: Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor and Richard Sibbes’ The Bruised Reed. The upshot of these are that we are not just leading a cause that uses people as pegs or units, but we are leading actual souls directly to God. That takes time. That takes God’s means. And this is exactly where the “experts” have very little to say. But since the church is made of people and not physical buildings, it would be fair to say that the experts are to this extent not talking about the real thing at all. It is at this most important stage—the building of the core group—where we may be even more tempted to get impatient with people.

How did Jesus shepherd? He laid down His life for the sheep. He got down to their level to teach, but then immediately pointed them beyond that level as a moral imperative. He was most pastoral to those who could give the least in return (as if anyone could contribute to Him). His gospel called for repentance first, and nothing else until that hurdle was cleared.

One more aspect of Jesus’ ministry could be mentioned here, and that is the amount of time He spent with His disciples verses the amount of time He spent with the crowds. Very often, He would intentionally withdraw from the crowd with the disciples in order to invest in them. This is especially true of the last weeks of His earthly ministry. Why would this be? It is because Jesus was building up His undershepherds, since they would be the ones to turn the world upside-down, not the crowds. Therefore, pastoring at the core group phase has a relentless eye toward leadership development.

In a sense, our philosophy of leadership-shepherding is the exact opposite of something Ronald Reagan once said about the liberal view of taxation: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it!” Well in the world of church excellence and spiritual life (if there are any Americans who are interested), we want to say, “If they move, invest in them!” It seems heartless to pull back when someone is not showing signs of life, but actually we have to get over a bit of ministerial arrogance here. We should reach out our nets as much as possible, but we should also be realistic about our own nets. We haven’t earned the right to be pastors until we have raised up who we have and delegated to them. What did Jesus make of the disciples? Just disciples? Wasn’t it apostles—which means, ones who are sent! In fact, we have not even made disciples unless we have also made missionaries.

How this ‘Raveling’ Should Look Toward Expanding

There is an imbalanced reaction today against the Mega-Church. Nine times out of ten, when someone leaves the confines of Evangelicaland for want of depth, they usually blame it all on the size of the church. This is to misunderstand the problem. The problem is that the gospel has been compromised at the altar of practice. Every Christian must think big because God must be glorified by the maximum amount of His creatures on the biggest stages of creation. Therefore, settling for smallness is inconsistent with the Great Commission. Yet one of the troubles comes when we define success by the size and timetables, rather than celebrate size and timetables as the overflow of our gospel-mission. If we have put the cart before the horse, we should not throw away the cart. We simply get the horse back in front.

Now here is what we are doing and why: We are investing in a core of leaders so that the right kind of growth can happen. This means that we will spend a few years of digging and watering and relying of the Holy Spirit. There are quite a few large gospel-centered churches that spent a decade tilling the soil with little glamour, but once they had done so, the explosion that ensued was something they were capable of handling and transforming into an army. Why? Because by taking their time with a hundred people or less, they wound up with a solid little army—like those 300 Spartans—a solid little missionary team. But when you have a hundred or more evangelists and pastors and theologians and musicians and campus ministers, you have a force that can really make a difference in a city. When Pentecost comes, there are real disciples who can shepherd them in an organized fashion, and without burning out each individual leader. But it can’t happen without real sacrifice at the outset. Nor can it happen without calling those whom we are shepherding to real sacrifice once we perceive that they are ready. While they are not ready, we need to be discipling them toward being ready to sacrifice. Where there is no sacrifice, there is no disciple. Where there is no disciple, there is no convert. Where there is no convert, there is no Christian. And where there is none of that, there should be no congratulations or comfort.

[1] Mark Driscoll, The Good Solider, YouTube video

Shepherding Notes - 3

What Does it Mean to be ‘Cross-Centered’? Part 1

Paul’s theology of the cross in 1 Corinthians is not just a model for preachers and preaching. It is a model for the Christian life. So it is also a model for the life of the whole church. We can hardly miss the language of church mission statements today trying to be “Christ-centered.” Some have even gone as far as to talk about being “cross-centered.” But what would that look like? We cannot exhaust the depths of it, but D. A. Carson, in his book The Cross and Christian Ministry breaks Paul’s cross-centered mission into five pieces: I) The Cross and Preaching—1:18-2:5, II) The Cross and the Holy Spirit—2:6-16, III) The Cross and Factionalism—3, IV) The Cross and Christian Leadership—4, and V) The Cross and the World Christian—9:19-27. He summarizes being cross-centered in this way: “the cross stands as the test and the standard of all vital Christian ministry. The cross not only establishes what we are to preach, but how we are to preach. It prescribes what Christian leaders must be and how Christians must view Christian leaders. It tells us how to serve and draws us onward in discipleship until we understand what it means to be world Christians.”[1] I will do my best to summarize Carson’s study in a few paragraphs.

I. CROSS-CENTERED PREACHING

1 Corinthians 2:2 - “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Knowing what the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each do in the plan of redemption helps us understand clearly the message of the cross, the outreach of the cross, and the preacher of the cross. First we have to understand what Paul had to resist in order to insist on a cross-centered ministry. The answer is the moral pride of the Jews and the intellectual pride of the Greeks. The cross is not the sort of thing that either of the world’s dominant categories could accept; though we will not obsess over that when we understand that only the called from among those Greeks and Jews will accept it anyway [1:24]. The main factor in preaching is not the context into which we speak; it is God’s activity. This reduces the preacher to a mere messenger but the message to the level of the determinative factor. The upshot of God’s message to the preacher is: “Just lift up the cross, Paul. Neither Jew nor Greek will take to it. But I have my people from among the Jews and Greeks, and they will come, not because you preach an especially moralistic or wise cross, but because of the attractive power of the cross itself.” Every shred of contextualization that the contemporary church is now obsessing over is answered decisively here. Every heart in every culture must be informed that their context is a grain of sand inside of the cross-centered context. The cross will divide between sheep and goat, between time and eternity, between theoretical and practical.

II. CROSS-CENTERED & SPIRIT-LED

1 Corinthians 2:13-14 – And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

If Jesus Christ crucified is the central message of gospel preaching, then the “things of Spirit” mentioned here will not deviate from that, since Jesus promised about the Spirit that “he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” [Jn. 16:13-14]. If this is true of preaching and hearing sermons, then it also true about worship music and small group leading and coffee-house discipleship. The cross of Christ is where all our sin is dealt with and where all our righteousness comes from. Therefore the work of Christ is literally the answer to absolutely everything. This is called a wisdom that only the “spiritual” [2:13] and the “mature” [2:6] receive. If the Holy Spirit is really on the move—in the giving of gifts, in illuminating the meaning of the Bible, in guiding through the practical affairs of life, in convicting of sin, in the life of corporate singing or fellowship—if it is really the Spirit of God at work here, then there will be a mighty vision of the cross where the love of Christ controls all things and where attention is actually drawn by the Spirit toward Jesus, and away from himself (much more, away from the individual Christian). This Spirit-led attraction to the cross demands three contrasts, according to Paul: 1) those who receive God’s wisdom vs. those who do not—2:6-10a, 2) the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of the world—2:10b-13, and 3) the natural person vs. the spiritual person—2:14-16. Once again, it is when we understand these things that we stop obsessing over means and results that take our eyes off of our true commission and our true power. It should be clear how Paul’s treatment of the Spirit goes hand in hand with his treatment of the cross of Christ—if the cross is folly to the natural man and it “becomes” glorious to the spiritual man, well then, it would seem that this whole operation is up to God: His message, His means, His power. But since the preacher is His means, it follows that the preacher’s job is to stand up there and talk about the depths of the cross come hell or high water, or even empty seats. The same will ultimately be true of other Christian leaders.

Questions for Reflection:

1. What do we do when a significant number of people just don’t seem to “get it”—No signs of spiritual life, no joy, no victory over sin—What part do we play in showing them more of what they need to hear?

2. What does it mean to be cross-centered in worship music? Sovereign Grace Ministries has purposed to do this. How have they done this? How do you do it without falling to the Roman Catholic error of portraying Christ as still on the cross?

3. In what senses is Christ crucified everywhere in Scripture? In what senses is Christ crucified applied to the issues of broken relationships, confused identities, bad habits, learning disabilities, unruly children, your pride?

[1] D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI 1993); p. 9

Shepherding Notes 2

Ministering the Word into the Soil

One way of answering the question—What is the purpose of this ministry? (small groups, coffee-house discipleship, worship music, women’s)—is to spread a passion for the glory of Christ through worldview and gospel transformation. But that seems to me to be an unattractive way of saying it in our day. It is also incomplete in terms of the specific fruit we desire. So my task will be to persuade you that this transformation of the believer’s soul is the first thing that we are after, and then to challenge you to craft a statement of your own that will take the substance of this from the mind to the affections to the will of those to whom you minister. So the overall philosophy of ministry in any biblical church is rooted in God’s means of creating believers through the act of preaching; only the specifics of applying it in diverse ministries vary. What is applied remains the same. The way I will do this is two-fold: First, to argue from Scripture that the human soul that is under the discipline of the Holy Spirit does work in this “top-down” fashion; Second, to argue against the church pragmatism of our day that seeks to create what C. S. Lewis called “men without chests”—thinking and feeling, but with no direct connection between the two. This will be thick, so, enjoy!

We begin by examining the words of the apostle Paul:

Romans 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

This is a classic text in how a Christian ought to think, and how he or she ought to mature. Notice two things about the structure of the verse: First, conforming and transforming are pit against each other as opponents. Second, the discernment of the latter half of the verse is treated as a clause of, and is rooted in, the transformation in the first half of the verse. Thus, I will argue, there is an unseen spiritual phenomenon at work (transformation vs. conformation) and there is also a human phenomenon, albeit mostly unseen, at work (theoretical transformation/practical application). By saying that this transformation of our minds in order to practically discern is the human phenomenon, I am suggesting that this is our most immediate responsibility. However, this does not mean that the largely unseen spiritual phenomena are not ours to tackle: prayer, words of encouragement, and acts of service are all things that the Bible teaches us edify our brothers and sisters in ways that we may not quickly notice. We must be aware of both levels, but we are more consistently influential in the transmission of biblical truth.

To the first part, Paul teaches us the spiritual principle that our minds are not unlike a field that will return to the wild if rain, seed, and the soil are not all performing their function. Our souls are constantly being compared to a farmer’s soil in Scripture. As to this verse, conforming to the patterns of this age is not merely a danger; it is our default. This is true of the whole of the soul. If I am not actively seeking transformation of my own soul, then my whole soul is still being active, whether I know it or not. If I am starving my intellect from reflecting upon the things of God, then mindless curiosity will begin to carry my brain away into other endeavors. If I am repressing my affections that were made for satisfaction in God, then my longings will still be present and leaping up to some other flame. If I prefer indecision when the Bible commands my will, then I have neglected the fact that the decision to not make a decision is still a decision.

In other words, there are only these two ways: active pursuit of God or else conforming back to all that which opposes Him. How we come to the feast of worship in order to escape this conforming will become more obvious when we look at the second aspect of this verse. By having our minds renewed (worldview shift), we are now ready to test everything else (practical discernment). In observing this order, it should be plain that how we think in the inner life of mind will determine our affections, which in turn determine our decisions. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The word “train” (khaw-nak’) comes from the ancient world of midwifery. Newborn infants would have crushed dates rubbed into their gums to cultivate a taste for the mother’s milk. Why do so many kids from Christian homes rebel once they leave the home? It is because their good behavior was merely external—driven by fear, manipulation, or shallowness of the soul, as Voddie Baucham explains:

Our children will ultimately act on what they believe too. If we do not give our children a biblical worldview, they will simply follow our rules while they are under our watchful eye, but as soon as they gain independence, they will begin to make decisions based upon their worldview. How many times have we seen this scenario played out? A young man or woman who was raised in a ‘good Christian home’ goes off to college and loses his cotton-pickin’ mind! What happened? It’s actually quite simple; the restraints were removed, and his worldview took over.[1]

When the human soul is not persuaded that the world is actually bigger than the one in which current sinful behavior is justified, there remains no motivation to break loyalties with the sin in question. That is why the current trend in application-saturated preaching and discipleship needs to be taken with a block of salt. As with childrearing, so with other forms of disciple-making: If we do not train up the whole soul by transforming the mind, then any momentary behavioral change will be nothing more than a reshuffling of the dirty deck of cards. In other words, application is always a dangerous thing to be holding in our hands. If it is not done with a constant connection to overarching biblical doctrines, then it will only serve to bolster the sinner’s more underlying problem. They will simply shift the plot of land in which the root of sin sprouts up, though the particular plant may look different to the naked eye. Though there is no space for it here, another consequence of application without doctrinal roots is a principle-legalism, where one or more of these behavioral shifts actually become attractive to the hearer; but, having missed the forest for the tree, he or she begins to beat those around her with that tree.[2]

An obvious question that results from this will be: “But isn’t preaching for doctrine, and the other ministries for application?” No—not at all. Both the preacher and the small group leader must labor to drive the truth deep into the soil, and that requires two things—a real seed and a good shovel. Beware of setting these against each other! And, oh by the way, even when you think hard about both of those, there needs to be a total contentment in the rain and the soil as well. All of these are necessary: seed (the Word), the shovel (application), the soil (the heart and its context), and the rain (the Holy Spirit). Any vision of ministering to real people that does not grapple with all four of these, all the time, is going to be shortsighted.

In terms of balancing out the pulpit with the small group, we should say that the sermon must be heavy on the doctrine so that there is weight of application that will drop, and then the small group leader must ensure that the soil is still flooded and stirring with seed before he or she begins working the ground. So both the pulpit and the small group engage in both doctrine and application. The difference is that the small group leader has much more flexibility to take a dozen or so people down to the soil to get their own hands dirty and inspect for that transformation. A mentor discipling a single person at a coffee house has even more of this flexibility.

Everything in the contemporary church culture screams out against such a holistic, top-down approach. Yet the Bible knows of nothing else. The letters are all written in this form—doctrine first; practice following—and when anyone attempts to get us to see things otherwise, common sense might ask: Apply what? Practice what? Works for what? When Paul wanted to set Titus apart from the wolves that assailed the Cretan believers, he said “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine” [Titus 2:1]. What is so instructive about the second chapter of Titus is that what the Apostle goes on to instruct his protégé in were the doctrines of masculinity, femininity, and vocation—all very practical things to be sure. The Greek word he uses for “teach” is lalei instead of the ordinary word for the apostles’ teaching, didache. Nor did he use the regular word for preaching, kerygma. Unlike these more normative terms, the command to lalei in sound doctrine refers to common, everyday talk—table talk. It is this that is the heart and soul of discipleship: a doctrine of gender identity, a doctrine of relationships, a doctrine of dress, a doctrine of calling, a doctrine of affections, a doctrine of edifying speech, etc. In other words, there is a right way to think about absolutely everything. If there was not, then what exactly are we advising people to do in the everyday things? If there is not, then Christ is less supreme, since there are things we are engaged in where we are at liberty to set up our own doctrines instead of searching out Jesus’ demands on the subject.

Practical Application that Rises Above Pragmatism

Pragmatism is the philosophy that says that matters of truth are resolved by what works in actual experience: If it works, do it. This degenerates rather quickly into a market full of “how-to’s” that does not even concern itself with matters of truth. Thus pragmatism is a lifestyle of blissfully ignorant omni-competence. It deliberately eschews the primary question: “What are we doing and why?” with the incessant chattering of commands and incentives. The “what” and the “why” is inconvenient to the “how to.” Os Guinness describes the pragmatism of William James—the man most credited as its founder—as the view “that religious beliefs were only true because of their consequences for human behavior, not because of their philosophical claims.”[3] That is an apt description since a Christianity that is more about what we see happening down in the temporal (behavior) than it is about how eternity is invading (grace and truth) will be less like the faith of the Bible. Whether it is in the sphere of religion or politics, business or education, the most certain effect of pragmatism is that it feeds the individual sinner with more sophisticated tools with which to commit more cultured versions of the same basic sins. A sinner with a new machine (a principle for shifting external behavior) may now mass-produce his sin. Give a sinner a moral mechanism and he will give you a new religion. But what you have not done is to engage the blueprints or the foundations of his sin factory.

Perhaps the greatest irony of pragmatism is that when it is full bloom, the practical is called the Real, and the theoretical the Ethereal. Nobody seems to understand that this idea is rooted in Immanuel Kant’s metaphysics that divorced theory from practice precisely because the Real could not be attained by pure reason. The philosophy of Kant changed the way that the Western world views all of reality. It can best be explained as a splintering of reality into two basic parts—what he called the Noumenal and Phenomenal realms. The Noumenal was the Real world: the way things were in themselves. Objective realities such as God, the self, freedom, and truth exist there. The trouble is that we live in the world of appearance, the Phenomenal, where, no matter what we’re looking at, we are not really getting at the essence of what that thing is—the thing in itself, it’s objective character. So in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), he argued that we cannot really know anything of that higher realm by rational demonstration. Of course he knew that this spelt death not only for biblical Christianity, but for all other areas of life as well. Yet because the whole dream of the Enlightenment was the good society, there were two things that rational man still needed—science and ethics. He needed to know about his world, and he needed to know how to behave within it. In short, he needed to get on with life, even if he could not ponder it very deeply as Western man had previously (and naively, we suppose) sought to do.

So for Kant we cannot know that God is there or what He is like, but we have to assume that He exists as a rational principle of human knowledge and behavior. We had to resort to practical judgment to settle life’s constant needs. From this flows the popular language so dominant in our time, that of separating the theoretical from the practical. We talk like this so much that it is almost sacrilege and positively offends to suggest that the two should not be divorced! But make no mistake, the philosophy of pragmatism stems from this splintering of the lower from the higher. And one of the reasons that it is so damaging to our thinking is that it borrows from this notion that we cannot (and perhaps, should not) know what the “true” or “real” nature of things are in themselves, and from this infers that such things are not relevant in the real world. Incredible! We cannot know the real—so let’s get back to the real? I think somebody is a bit confused! In other words, pragmatism only exists because of a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to it! It is self-refuting, and therefore so is everything else that follows.

Any Christian leader, I suppose, may read this and say: “Very well—it’s a good thing I’m not an agnostic like Kant!” The trouble with this quick response is that it assumes that the only way one can splinter reality in this way is to treat God as the thing which is unknowable in himself. The reality is that our whole education and culture is steeped in the post-Kantian way of thinking, and that unless you have already studied this, you may be assured that you have been trained to think like this on many levels. And the moment you say: “I don’t need to be trained against Kant so much as I need to be trained in the Scriptures!” True statement—but are you sure that is what you received? What if I told you that if you show me any denomination (or non-denominational strand) within Christendom that you learned your Bible under, I will show you that what you read from those pages of Scripture was not so much Christianity, but Kantianity? What if? Because that is exactly what we must be shown. The way that we talk about virtually everything—if pressed enough—begins to reveal this two-tiered splintering of reality into “theory and practice.”

Impatience with the practicality of teaching is yet another damaging effect of pragmatism. We assume that when people do not “translate” truth into practice, that the problem must always be the loftiness of the truth declared. Just the opposite is true. Our souls do not match up to the real world precisely because sin has shrunk their vision. Conversely our souls begin to match up to the real world if and only if they have been enlarged by a greater vision of God.

[1] Voddie Baucham, Family Driven Faith (Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL 2007); p. 74
[2] Baucham briefly discusses this principle-legalism as well, ibid., pp. 85-88
[3] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think & What to do About It (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI 1994); p. 55

Shepherding Notes 1

These notes, which I will add to as inspiration strikes me, exist for the purpose of leadership development at our church, The Well, but may hopefully help anyone who stumbles upon them.

Complementarianism

I just read a quote this week from someone talking about the issue of gender distinction. This person remarked how the differences between the two sexes were basically biological. The statement could have come right out of Piper & Grudem's Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood where many respectable scholars tackled various related issues. The trouble is that this particular quote came from Brian McLaren, so, naturally, he was using this same reasoning to justify how the "He's" "His" and "Him's" in the Bible refering to God were simply generic. Now of course the view of the CBMW is diametrically opposed to McLaren's. However I offer this as just one piece of evidence that much damage can be done by not taking Genesis 1-3 seriously and thoroughly enough, or, said another way, by not making gender and sexuality a worldview/worship issue (like everything else). This it seems to me is the one weakness I have seen so far within the CBMW. Of course, I love what they're doing in general. But consider this a bit of a crusade of mine, as I think that forging such a biblically thorough picture of gender and marriage will give our young people the tools to enter into it with their head screwed on somewhat straight.

Can I be specific? Here is my most concise defintions of marriage and gender (see the audio for the class Dating, Gender, & Compromise for a more thorough unpacking):

If we want to understand either gender or marriage, we have to understand man and woman's chief end in the context of creation. God made Adam and Eve in His image in order for Him to be glorified. We all know this, then we all proceed to forget it the moment we start to think about marriage in the here and now. I argued in the class that the "leading, providing, protecting" (male) and "affirming, nurturing, receiving" (female) from Piper's lingo explain God's design to make for Adam a "helper fit" for him. Once we have already understood what image (Christian Hedonism) and Eden (delight, in the Hebrew) are, the "helping" and "fitting" are really the key things to see about Chapter 2 as the two become "one flesh," or, one glory reflector. That is why we call it "Complementarianism" after all, since the two complement, or fit together, for this single-minded purpose of worship. This glorification of God through the man's spiritual headship just IS what marriage is. This is not the "Christian" view or the "biblical" view (those words can be so cheapened)--it is the only view, since this is God's reality, and He made it for His purposes. Once we have fought for this vision of gender and marriage, all of the other jagged-edged pills I have to throw out into the crowd in class will go down much more smoothly.

t4g - Day 3

Well, back to the carousel...at least that's what Mahaney called it today. Well, first, John Piper gave his usual fire-breathing encouragement for us to stop being a bunch of American idolaters. Hope everyone took it well. Actually, to be specific, he went through six texts in Hebrews that call us to radical Christian sacrifice, or going to gain Christ "outside the camp," so that when the world sees us, they actually see that we're different. Only the biggest possible vision for His supremacy actually brings glory to Him! Seeing this is why we all love Piper so much. Mahaney though was downright convicting to me. Especially the first of his three points: Greatfulness to God communicated to the sheep by my identifying "evidences of grace" in them. I already knew about this lingo within Sovereign Grace, but had somehow neglected the so obviously contageous effect that this joy has on an entire ministry. That has to change in me. While I was chewing on that on my way back to the hotel, we turned around to hold the door open for the guy behind us--it was Piper. We just chatted (actually, mostly me chattering, but it was good to meet him in person) for about a minute. I can say that both he and Mahaney exude a Spirit-filled, down-to-earth reality to them that this movement would do well to emulate...not in a cheap mimicking way, but in being moved by what moves them. God made us all totaly different and that's good. Which, by the way, I would hope that the 5,000 plus hearers of these 8 men do not so much compare them to each other, or demand that they score sectarian points for them or become for them some consumer event, but rather see in them a glorious God who has given us eight unique and edifying angles in a prism through which to see how ministers of this "young, restless, and reformed" army are to conduct themselves back home. But bloggers will be bloggers, and so there will no doubt be that mindless and counterproductive yapping. For us, we return to Boise, to the carousel. But if we believe what we just heard, there can be nothing "ordinary" about it.

t4g - Day 2

I feel fed. Mental exhaustion is not in my vocabulary. We could have had four more sessions today, and I'd be on the edge of my seat, but it is my whole soul that is stuffed. First, John MacArthur talked about the doctrine of total depravity and Mark Dever followed up with five popular ways that the gospel is added to, or "improved" upon. When we broke for lunch, I couldn't help but hear much conversation that revealed the value of this conference. A lot of "Wow, never thought of that!" or "Hey, do you believe that?" or "No, I think what he's really saying is..." In other words, there's a lot of people here who are not quite where we're at--and that's reason to celebrate, since pastors are being won over to what R. C. Sproul calls the Reformed faith.

Incidentally, his interchange with C. J. prior to his talk was hillarious! Everyone there may have a sense of humor, but clearly R. C. and C. J. are the biggest characters by far. As to Sproul's talk, it was moving. It was second only to Piper's '06 message. He talked about the curse motif in the biblical doctrine of the atonement, and wrapped it up with one of the most profound (yet clear) demonstrations of the gospel any of us have ever heard. Al Mohler wrapped things up tonight with an explanation of why they (you know who 'they' are) hate the substitutionary aspect of the atonement so much. It started off a bit slow from my perspective, but he gave a good survey of atonement theories and categories--theological, moral, biblical, and cultural--for the opponents' objections. The panel discussion which ensued from that was the best, though probably a bit thick for the "average pastors" to which C. J. refers. By the way, I met him afterwords and thanked him for being a long-distance pastor to so many of us. I also sat next to a fellow Covenant Life leader Gary Ricucci who wrote a marriage book which my wife and I have read. You get the vibe from the Sovereign Grace guys that they're just really excited to serve and humble. Good stuff.

And, yes, more books....a lot more. I hope we get all these things on the plane.

t4g - Day 1

Today in Louisville, I experienced the Holy Spirit in a way that I honestly had not in several years. One result is an increased joy and conviction together. Before arriving, I was excited on a sort of horizontal level--people to see, places to go, food to eat. But today was truly special for me, as I was part of 5,000 men singing at the top of their lungs: A Mighty Fortress is Our God, It is Well, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, and All Hail the Power of Jesus Name. I have never been part of anything even vaguely like that.

As to the messages, J. Ligon Duncan gave a message that I wish everyone from the rising generation could hear. The theme was the value and the inevitability of systematic theology in the church. He was followed by Thabiti Anybawile giving a stirring talk on the myth of race (as biological) and that the gospel is at stake in how we live out the unity that we have in Christ. Both messages were phenomenal. As a sidenote, I walked away with a dozen new books, and there should be some more giveaways tomorrow. It should be good: MacArthur, Dever, Sproul, and Mohler is the order tomorrow. I better get to sleep.

The Well - One Year Later

I haven't blogged in four months. It's been a year since I went to the Acts29 Bootcamp in Vancouver to be assessed for church planting. We got recommended and, as of today, we are an official A29 church with a spot on the map!

Next week, a few of us guys are headed for Louisville for the Together for the Gospel Conference. The theme is the importance of the content of the gospel. Perfect. That is exactly what I want to hear Sproul, Piper, Mahaney, et. all talk about! I'll try to remember to blog from there.

As far as books being read recently, several Galatians commentaries due to starting our expositional series on that book: Luther, Calvin, Henry, Machen, Fung, Ryken

I'm half-way through Emerson Eggerichs' Love & Respect and half-way through Jerry Bridges' The Gospel for Real Life. Both very helpful.