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In-Ear or In-The-Sanctuary: You Can Set Up a Killer Personal Monitoring System

By
Duke Taber
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communicating with the unchurched

A personal monitoring system takes an individual’s monitor mix and sends it directly to the ears of that musician or singer. If in a church with high ceilings and hard surfaces designed for acoustic music, choirs and sermons, there are a few problems. Some churches are acoustically challenged venues such as the ones meeting in a school gym or office building. For a quieter stage, less feedback and more control over individual mixes, a personal monitoring system is the answer. Today, entry-level wireless in-ear monitoring (IEM) systems including transmitter, bodypack, receiver, and earphones are far less expensive than the equipment that first came on the scene in many mega-churches nearly 20 years ago.

To determine what kind of system will work best for you/your church, let’s assess your needs and those of the musicians and singers and the type of mixing console that you have.

Who will benefit the most from a personal monitoring system?

  • Of course, vocalists will benefit from it, but also drummers will play quieter and more controlled with IEMs.
  • Organists will also benefit, especially if they are located at the opposite end of the sanctuary. Time delays can be eliminated if choir monitors are fed into the organist’s personal monitor system.
  • Pastors and teachers will benefit as the IEMs prevent feedback that comes from gooseneck microphones or lavaliers.
  • Choir directors use it for cues to hear the pastor more clearly.
  • It eliminates the “volume war offenders”!
  • Audio engineers use IEMs for microphone placement in front of loud instruments. This lets the engineer walk right to the front of the amp cabinet and position it for the best audio without being exposed to louder than normal sound pressure levels.

Do you want wired, wireless or both?

Hardwired systems require the musicians and singers to be tethered to a cable. Drummers, back-up singers and keyboard players who are stationary on stage have no problem with being tethered and thus can take advantage of the lower cost and the simplicity that hardwired systems offer.

Hardwired systems also work without searching for clear frequencies. If several performers share the same mix, hardwired systems can be chained together without causing noticeable signal loss.

Wireless is more sophisticated and expensive. Also, it requires more attention to detail. However, the advantages are great: free-to-move worship leaders and musicians can hear a consistent mix from any location on stage. If several performers are using the same mix, they are easy to hook up. You can use however many wireless receivers as you need to monitor the same mix and there will be nothing harmed. No cables to trip over counts for something.

Do individual artists need their own personal monitoring system or can the band share monitor mixes?

It depends on how many people are in your band and who needs a personal monitor. The band must collaborate and figure out what they want to hear in their mixes. Here are some ways to go:

One mix:

Everyone wants to listen to the same mix, but this defeats the purpose of individual monitoring that allows each performer to hear themselves.

Two mixes:

An inexpensive setup would be one for vocals and another for instruments. The performers individually choose how much of each mix they want to hear. However, band members must agree on the configuration. It is a cost-effective way to transition to personal monitors.

Another way to work with two mixers is to have a separate mix for the drummer. Drummers want to hear more drums in their monitors than the singers and other musicians do. Also, drums can be played acoustically, especially in small venues.

Three mixes:

Assuming the vocalists agree on a mix of the vocal microphones when they share the same mix you get a good vocal blend. The lead vocalist could have an individual mix.

A great solution is to place some of the backup mics in the “instruments” mix and adjust the vocal mix to satisfy the lead singer, even if that means you must add some instruments to the “vocal” mix. This way you have an individual mix for the lead singer, a mix for guitars and keyboard that includes their vocals, and finally a drum mix that can include the bass player.

How many mixes does your console have?

Monitor mixes are created using auxiliary (AUX) sends from a mixer, either FOH console or a dedicated monitor console.  Usually, a console of small format should have at least four AUX sends which are also used for effects. How many available sends that your console has will determine how many monitor mixes you can have.

Will you go with stereo or mono?

Most personal monitoring systems can go either way. Stereo requires two channels of audio so two sends are required to create a stereo monitor mix. It takes twice as many sends as a mono mix and it will quickly use up your AUX sends. If your mixer has only four sends, you can only create two stereo mixes. Mono can save you a lot of money.

How is your budget?

You can spend several hundred to several thousand dollars for a good wireless system. It is a good idea to start gradually with one band member at a time. It may take a while for all of the members to adjust to IEM after years of standing in front of a mic.

Conclusion:

To determine what kind of system will work best for you/your church, first assess your needs and those of the musicians and singers and the type of mixing console that you have. Consider:

  • Who will benefit from it?
  • Do you want wired, wireless or both?
  • Do individuals need their own monitoring system, or can they share?
  • How many mixes does your console have?
  • Do you want stereo or mono?
  • How is your budget?

With all of these things taken into consideration, you will be able to make the right choice for a personal monitoring system.

 

This article about a personal monitoring system originally appeared here, and is used by permission.

True Worship: Experience or Encounter?

By
Timothy Willard and Jason Locy
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communicating with the unchurched

This feature is a special excerpt from the book Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society by Tim Willard and Jason Locy. Download the Kindle version for 99 cents until Monday!

Behold, the dwelling place
of God is with man.

 — Revelation 21:3 ESV

If you ever have the chance, do yourself a favor and explore the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona all meet. It’s the kind of place that feels like God took extra care to create. In New Mexico, you can drive a hundred miles in any direction, stop the car, and step out into the resounding silence of a mesa desert where the silence hovers, permeating the entire region.

The Durango silence differs; there, Colorado’s San Juan Mountains rifle up toward the sky, thick with bristle cone pine and aspens. Creeks and rivers knife down and through the mountains, splashing liquid white upon the outdoor canvas. And then there’s the sound. At 4:00 a.m. on a clear June night, you can see just enough of your surroundings to feel uneasy. All is still, except for the air whistling ever so gently through the pines while the aspen leaves rustle their approval. And when you look up, through the trees, the stars jump out of the darkness like millions of surfacing whales, majestic and fearsome.

Beneath the canopy, you can barely see your campsite. If not for the whale stars, all would be black. As you stand outside your tent, you can hear your heart beating, but just barely. The silence has a rhythm — the cadence of the leaves, the flow of the rushing water, and the crackle of a neighboring fire. These are the sounds of the San Juan silence, and they are wonderfully deafening.

Next, head west, just over the mountains, to Moab, Utah. Grab some java at Mondo Coffee and hit the Porcupine Rim trail on your mountain bike or take a jeep tour of the red desert. Then, continue northwest and spend the night in Bryce Canyon.

In Bryce, another kind of silence awaits, the brilliant kind. Camp near the rim of the canyon if you can. There are plenty of sites. Do your best to wake up well before the dawn. Hike over to Sunrise Point and set up your camp chair facing east over the canyon. And wait. If you have coffee, bring it; you may also want your journal.

From this vantage point, you will be able to see more stars than you ever thought possible. They are not the same whale stars from Durango; these are the minions of God — the infinite army of light soldiers, their shields shimmering like a pirate’s treasure. They’re a spectacle so vivid you can decipher them by color and size. But this is not why you’re sitting here.

As the sun gets closer to the horizon, the stars fade and the canyon begins to wake. All the hoodoo rock formations with their red-rock hues come into view, and you begin to see the valley stretch out before you. The thin mountain air crystallizes the view. And then it happens: the first peek of sunlight emerges, shouting past the horizon like a growling giant. The canyon explodes with color. The sky bleeds into a rainbow while the canyon dances in shadows and light.

The sound is brilliant, painted with color and majesty and wonder, and a touch of magic. As you watch it all unfold, you gasp. Again, you can hear your heart beating, fast. You breathe in while your eyes dart from canyon to sun to sky to journal. Nothing more to do but sit and listen and watch.

The weight of silence, the fullness of solitude — we are not familiar with either. They seem strange and uncomfortable to us. And yet within them are the deep murmurings of God.

You will, undoubtedly, be hard pressed to find a place devoid of sound, so perhaps the better idea of silence rests in the act of being quiet, hushing your words to hear God’s. And doing so in a place of beauty, removed from distractions.

The Four Corners’ version of silence and solitude is grand. Its massiveness makes you feel insignificant. If you’ve ever rappelled down a sheer Sierra Nevada cliff or dropped two hundred feet into the pitch black belly of a mountain, then you know the feeling of complete helplessness — your heart beating in your ears, your mind racing through death scenarios. Fear and exhilaration fill the encounter. The allure of this part of the country rests in its wildness and unpredictability. At any moment, you could be crushed by its immensity. It drips with holy grandeur, like God is hovering over and breathing down on the land.

Path to Self-Abandonment

Who is God to you?

When you daily approach him, how do you do it? What motivates you? Do you come to him with a scripted mindset as if you were taking a vacation to Disney World where you know exactly what to expect? Do you bank on God’s being and acting a certain way?

Or do you approach him with zero expectations?1 The same way you’d approach hiking a newfound trail. You would start walking, taking in the view. Nothing scripted, nothing predictable.

What do you bring before him? Do you bring him the cracked vessel of you? Or do you bring him a veneered you, the lost and afraid you?

What does it mean to worship him?

Too often we treat God as our pocket Savior, our own personal Jesus, or our political fail-safe or maybe even our get-out-of-jail-free card for a way of living we know isn’t on the up and up.

“If you have only come the length of asking God for things,” writes minister and teacher Oswald Chambers, “you have never come to the first strand of abandonment, you have become a Christian from a standpoint of your own.”2 And this will not fly. We cannot approach God as though he were a cosmic superstore. We must be willing to hold the relational position of self-abandonment.

Self-abandonment? Isn’t this the society in which the pursuit of self gets rewarded? Do we not promote language like “positive self-speak” and “leveraging influence” and “expressing yourself”? In our society, if you’re not leveraging or maximizing something, you’re underachieving.

But no matter how much we try to skew the Christian life, we cannot wiggle away from Christ’s own challenge to his disciples: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”9 Through Christ we find that grace transforms us out of our fallenness and that mercy challenges us to follow after Christ himself, a way of life wholly other.

Life’s realities make following along this narrow path difficult. It can be lonely. We’d rather be friends with God and fall into a nonchalant faith of church attendance and worship events than to seek him in the brilliant silence. Many of us are frustrated in our spiritual lives because we feel like God doesn’t hear us. But should that frustration surprise us when we ask of him from a position of selfishness?

Seventy-five years ago, poet T. S. Eliot wrote,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to God.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.12

Eliot’s words are familiar to us. Not because we have read them before but because we have lived them and are living them. In gaining the world, we refuse to abandon the self. We are nearer to the dust and have nothing to show for it.

16th Street Church: Never Forget the 4 Girls Killed in the 1963 Bombing

By
Jessica Lea
-
16th street
L: See page for author, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today is the 57th anniversary of the murder of four girls who were killed when members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) set off a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. While the church was not able to hold an in-person memorial service this year because of restrictions due to COVID-19, senior pastor Rev. Arthur Price, Jr., invited people to watch a recording of last year’s service online. 

“We want to remember how our foreparents became agents of change,” said Price, “and they advocated for the Civil Rights Act to be passed and later the Voting Rights Act to be passed…I pray that you tune in, and I pray that you never forget and that you remember that these four little girls became agents of change. Because of their deaths, we have galvanized a generation, we’ve motivated a movement, and we’ve made the bitter days of Birmingham better.” 

Four Girls Murdered in 16th Street Church Bombing

On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, Addie Mae Collins, Sarah Collins (Addie’s sister), Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair, were getting ready for church in a basement restroom when a bomb made of dynamite went off at 10:22 a.m. All of the girls died except for Sarah, who lost her right eye. At least 14 other people were injured when the bomb went off on the east side of the building, destroying walls and filling 16th Street Baptist Church with smoke. Denise was 11 years old, Sarah was 10, and the other three girls were 14.

At the time, Birmingham (where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”) was highly segregated and the site of much racial violence. Alabama Gov. George Wallace was adamantly opposed to desegregation, the city’s police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor was known for using violence against civil rights protestors, and the KKK was quite active. 

In fact, it was so common for the KKK to set off bombs throughout the city that it earned the nickname “Bombingham.” Birmingham historian Horace Huntley says, “There were 40 plus bombings that took place in Birmingham between the late 40s and the mid 60s.” These attacks, he says, were attempts from the KKK (with the backing of local authorities) to intimidate civil rights activists. Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice was a young girl in Birmingham at the time. She said that her father, a minister, organized a sort of militia with his friends to protect the Black community from the KKK. They could not trust the police because the police were just as likely as the KKK to be setting off the bombs.

16th Street Baptist Church was the site of many civil rights meetings and rallies during that time period, and it was common for marches to start from the church. The bombing that occurred there was the third that had happened within 11 days after a federal court ordered Alabama school systems to be integrated. Later named as suspects in the bombing were four men: Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Herman Frank Cash. All were Klan members, and none were charged at the time. While some claim that the FBI withheld information, the FBI says the truth is that director J. Edgar Hoover believed there was not enough evidence to prosecute.

Eventually, three of the men were prosecuted. Chambliss was convicted of first-degree murder in 1977 and received life in prison, where he died in 1985. Cash died in 1994 without ever being charged. Blanton and Cherry were convicted of first-degree murder and each received four life terms in prison, Blanton in 2001 and Cherry in 2002. Cherry died in prison in 2004, while Blanton died in prison on June 26, 2020. 

Sen. Doug Jones led the prosecutions of Blanton and Cherry, and he attended 16th Street Baptist Church’s memorial service last year. “We cannot forget what happened here in Birmingham,” the senator told WVTM 13 News. “It is happening again across the country. We’ve seen a rise in hate crimes. And we just cannot allow that to continue to happen.”

In a statement issued after Blanton’s death this summer, Jones said, “The fact that after the bombing, [Blanton] went on to remain a free man for nearly four decades speaks to a broader systemic failure to hold him and his accomplices accountable. That he died at this moment, when the country is trying to reconcile the multi-generational failure to end systemic racism, seems fitting. Tommy Blanton may be gone, but we still have work to do.”

In an April 2019 interview, Addie Mae Collins’ surviving sister Susan Collins Rudolph told WBUR about the tragic morning when she lost her sister and her eye. Addie Mae was starting to tie Denise’s sash when, “Boom, the bomb went off.” A church deacon rescued Rudolph, and she assumed that the other girls had escaped. Later, when Rudolph was hospitalized, her mother told her what had happened.

It has been difficult for Rudolph to come to terms with how the city of Birmingham responded to that event and to her in the aftermath of the bombing. “The way they treated me here in the city of Birmingham, they don’t acknowledge me as being the fifth little girl,” said Rudolph. “You know, you go into church to praise God, and you come out without your sister. And today, we still haven’t gotten an apology from the city of Birmingham. Nothing. Nothing. [We’re] still paying bills for doctors for my eye.”

‘It Feels Like the Right Time’ to Reopen Lakewood, Osteen Says

By
Megan Briggs
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communicating with the unchurched

Joel Osteen, along with his wife, Victoria Osteen, announced their Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas has set a date to resume in-person services. On October 18th, the church is planning on opening its doors for the first time since announcing the shift to online-only services on March 11th of this year.

It Feels Like the Right Time, Osteen Says

“It felt like it was the right time,” Osteen told reporters on Monday about the decision to open their doors again. This feeling was confirmed, Osteen indicated, when “right after that Mayor Turner said that venues can have 25 percent capacity.” Additionally, Osteen says the input the church has received from its members indicate that they are ready to come back.


Lakewood’s facility can seat 16,800 people, so a quarter of that capacity could mean as many as 4,200 people showing up on the 18th of October. 

Mayor Sylvester Turner Approves Venues Reopening

On Wednesday September 9, 2020, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced that the city’s COVID-19 case count was low enough that they could start allowing more things to open back up since shut down orders were put in place in March. 

Mayor Turner’s directives include the following provisions for venues hosting special events such as sporting events and conventions:

Venues will only be allowed to operate at 25 percent of their capacities
Social distancing measures must be followed
Masks must be worn
Attendees must have their temperatures checked at the door
Attendees must fill out a health questionnaire 

Osteen told reporters the church would be following Turner’s directives for venues. He assured reporters the staff of Lakewood has “taken great precaution to keep our members safe. We care about our members, we care about Houston and the people that live here.” 

The specific measures the church will put into practice that Osteen mentioned include having people sign up on their website to attend a service, having members wear masks, and possibly having them sit in every other row to maintain social distancing. Osteen also said the church has been outfitted with other things to promote good hygiene such as touchless faucets in the bathrooms and antimicrobial escalator handrails.

As KHOU reports, Lakewood Church members were sent an email detailing the measures the church is taking to protect their health. The email specifies the following things:

Bathroom and Plumbing Upgrades: The installation of touchless faucets, touchless soap dispensers and touchless flush valves. All restrooms walls, doors, floors and fixtures will be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized regularly.

Escalator Safety Upgrades: All Escalators have been fitted with a combination of Schindler Safe Ultra UVC Sterilization and CleanRail Antimicrobial Escalator Handrails. This will be effective in killing bacteria and viruses, and will provide the attendees with peace of mind when holding on to the escalator handrail.

7 Things You Should Know About the Jewish Feasts

By
Esther Laurie
-
communicating with the unchurched

I love how God keeps His promises to us. In Leviticus 23, God gave Moses seven days of feasts at specific times throughout the year.

Each of these feasts represents a promise and a meaning Jesus would later fulfill. Got Questions wrote, “From the Old Covenant to the New, Genesis to Revelation, God provides picture after picture of His entire plan for mankind and one of the most startling prophetic pictures is outlined for us in the Jewish feasts of Leviticus 23.”

The Hebrew word for “Feasts” is moadim which means “appointed times.” God uses these feasts to tell His great story. We see the Gospel and his redemption through these feasts.

There are spring feasts and fall feasts. We saw Jesus fulfill the spring feasts in scripture on the exact feast day during his first coming. “These three fall feasts, it is believed by many, will likewise be fulfilled literally in connection to the Lord’s second coming.”

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.’”
Leviticus 23:1

1. Passover

Passover was first celebrated when God delivered his people from Egypt and slavery. Now we celebrate the day Jesus died as the ultimate sacrificial lamb. Paul references this fulfillment in 1 Corinthians 5:7.

2. Unleavened Bread

In the Bible, leaven or yeast in a symbol of sin and evil. The feast of Unleavened Bread points to Jesus’ sinless life. During the first few days of this feast, Jesus’ body was in the grave.

3. First Fruits

First Fruits is the day Jesus was resurrected. Paul refers to this in 1 Corinthians 15:20 when he says Jesus is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

4. Pentecost

Pentecost represents the “great harvest of souls and the gift of the Holy Spirit for both Jew and Gentile” as we see in Acts 2. This is the day the Church was established when “God poured out His Holy Spirit and 3,000 Jews responded to Peter’s great sermon and his first proclamation of the gospel.”

5. Trumpets

This is the “first of the fall feasts.

6. Atonement

The Day of Atonement will be fulfilled with the second coming of Jesus (Romans 11:25-26) when “The Deliverer will come from Zion.”

7. Tabernacles

This is the day devout Jews would build small shelters outside their homes and worship in them to celebrate how God provided shelter for His people in the wilderness. “Many scholars believe that this feast day points to the Lord’s promise that He will once again ‘tabernacle’ with His people).”

“Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.”
Zechariah 14:16-17

There is a theme of sacrifice in these feasts, and overwhelming proof of God fulfilling His promises to his people.

 

Jesus and Performance Fatigue

By
Scott Sauls
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communicating with the unchurched

In the classic play, Fiddler on the Roof, a husband and wife have two daughters who have both fallen in love. The husband, noticing how happy the daughters are, turns to his wife and asks her, “Do you love me?” She responds:

Do I love you? For twenty-five years I have washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now? Do I love him? For twenty-five years I have lived with him, fought with him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that’s not love, what is?

…to which the husband nervously mutters, “Then you love me?”

Clearly, the wife is missing the essence of love. For love is complete, love is at its most healthy place, when the duties of love are driven by the delights of love.

In some ways, the wife in Fiddler on the Roof is a parable for all of us. Caught up in the pressure of daily responsibilities, distractions, and the tyranny of the urgent, our most important relationships—the ones that once made us come alive and were the source of our deepest joy—become dull and flat. What used to bring us delight becomes mere duty. What used to stir our affections becomes an annoyance. What used to be our most tangible experience of grace becomes poisoned by grudges. What used to be face-to-face becomes side-to-side at best, or back-to-back at worst.

When we the duties of love overshadow the delights of love, intimacy and companionship are eclipsed by loneliness. And? It’s not just human relationships that experience this erosion of joy. It also happens in our relationship with God.

When we lose our intimacy with God, it’s not because God has shifted. In these moments and seasons of distance, we can truly say to him, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Consider Jesus’ dear friend, Martha:

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her (Luke 10:38-42).

Like the wife in Fiddler on the Roof, Martha is emotionally and relationally impaired by performance fatigue. Working hard and working alone to serve the guests, her frustration and anxiety are palpable. She is “busy with much serving,” and for this, she has often been criticized. But I don’t think Jesus was criticizing her for being busy.

The Greek word Jesus uses for Martha’s “serving” is diakoneo, which is used positively every place it shows up in the Bible. When Jesus described himself, declaring that he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, he used the word diakoneo (Matthew 20:28). When the Apostle Paul lays out the qualifications for deacons, a role of help and service in the church, this is the word that he uses (1 Timothy 3:8). When he commends Phoebe as a faithful servant in her local church, he calls her a diakonon (Romans 16:1).

So, lest we wrongly dismiss Martha for somehow being untrue to Jesus, let’s consider her hard work. She is welcoming her guests, after all. She is practicing the gospel virtue of hospitality. Let’s also consider the understanding and grace that Jesus extends to her. When he addresses her, Jesus says her name twice. “Martha, Martha.” The repetition of a person’s name in Semitic language was a term of endearment. Jesus was pleading with her, not scolding her as if she were some sort of rebel. “Martha, Martha” is Jesus’ gesture of compassion and kindness to Martha, and also to us.

Martha, Martha…

…before you try to change the world, you must first let me change you.
…before you make your mark on others, you must first let me make my mark on you.
…before you get busy to make things better, you must first let me make you better.
…before you can serve and feed me, you must first let me serve and feed you.

You see, Martha’s affliction is not that she is a busy-body. Her affliction is that she has a busy heart. She is distracted with much serving, and because of this, her very legitimate, life-giving diaconal service is spoiled. She is working from a chaotic center. She is seeking to create order from a cluttered core. She is so busied with and distracted by secondary things, that she has lost touch with the first thing—which is the love that brought her into friendship with Jesus in the first place.

I know your good works, your toil…I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent (Revelation 2:1-7).

Jesus’ words to the church at Ephesus were compelled by the same longing he had for Martha. More than he wanted Martha’s service, he wanted Martha’s face. More than he wanted her activity, he wanted her heart.

In a similar way, Jesus sees us in our eagerness to be faithful, in our efforts to make a meaningful contribution to his kingdom. He sees our hard work, our loyalty and devotion, our endurance. He sees us walking side by side with him. And he also sees how invisible we sometimes feel in our efforts to please and impress.

Said Martha, “Lord, do you not care…?”

Said the dutiful elder son to his Father, “These many years I have slaved for you, and I never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends” (Luke 15:29).

Do you hear the cry beneath the cries of Martha and the resentful son? If we listen closely, we will see that they are both after something more than mere relief from their work. What they want, what they feel that they are missing, is recognition. Affirmation. Approval. Affection. A smile. A benediction. For someone to say to them, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Once one of our daughters asked me to watch her as she read a book…silently.

But she was after something more than a mere audience for her silent reading adventure. What she wanted most was a blessing. She wanted to hear me tell her how impressed I was that she could read a book all by herself. That she could do no wrong. That she was awesome. She wanted to hear her Dad say, “Well done.”

There’s something in all of us, isn’t there, that is just dying to be watched, to be looked at, to be seen, and to hear the “Well done,” yes?

But the resentful son was deafened to his Father’s affirmation, to his bold declaration, “All I have is yours.” Martha, likewise, was numb to Jesus’ tender, double repetition of her name. And so they both leaned hard on their busyness, their productivity, their something-to-show-for-it postures, as a last ditch effort to secure a recognition that was already theirs.

In Jesus, the “Well done” comes before we do anything for him. It comes to us at the start of our journey with Jesus versus at the end. For Martha and the elder brother, the word from God is, “All that I have is already yours. So come sit with me. Enter my rest.”

And this is also the word from God for us.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus said, “and I will give you rest.”

Let’s go find rest at his feet then, shall we?

So let’s roll up our sleeves and serve somebody, shall we?

This article originally appeared here.

Two Postures: Faith and Fear

By
Jason Hood
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communicating with the unchurched

“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.  And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.  By faith Noah, in reverent fear…”  Hebrews 11

“For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Knowing the fear of the LORD…” 2 Corinthians 5

Let’s look at the highlighted words, and find two points to take away:

2 Cor 5 Heb 11

by faith                                                    by faith

pleased God                                           please him

draw near to God                                 appear before the judgment seat of Christ

he rewards                                             we receive what is due

reverent fear                                         fear of the LORD

Two observations:  (1)  I love the way these passage work to point out the critical nature of faith on the way to reward. Notice that faith alone is not what pleases God, but what faith does in our lives (i.e., in 2 Cor, it produces courage). For example, a few chapters later, Hebrews 13:16 tells us that sacrifices of generosity and doing good please God. In other words, righteous deeds done from a posture of faith in God are pleasing to the King.

(2) Faith and fear might sound like strange bedfellows, but they are two common ways of talking about a slave’s relationship to a master higher up the org chart of the ancient world. We trust our lord and king to help us and sustain us; he does what we cannot do. And we fear him, knowing the threat of judgment and the responsiblity of obedience.

God’s Word Speaks to Our Concerns About Racism. Are We Listening?

By
André Ballard
-
communicating with the unchurched

In my recent conversations about racial injustice, I have encountered some Christians who fit into one of two categories: either they don’t know some truth of God’s Word and need to be educated, or they know the Bible well but find it difficult to connect and apply it to their own contextualized situations.

I am neither a politician nor an academic scholar. I am a pastor; therefore, I think about ways I can respond to situations first biblically and then pastorally. The goal of my counsel is always to teach the truth of Scripture and help people apply it to their lives.

Christian friends, the Scriptures speak clearly to the Church in these days of heartache and confusion. Are we listening? Here are six specific ways that God’s Word transforms our response to racism.

Think Differently

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 (Romans 12:2).

If you are spending more of your time watching the various news and social media outlets than you are reading the Bible or listening to sermons, that is a problem. Your thinking is being conformed to the image of this world. It is only the Word of God and the Spirit of God that can communicate the will of God. A faithful reading of the Bible must be our primary source of information as we learn to discern what is acceptable according to God’s standard.

Listen First, Then Act

Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.… Be doers of the word, and not hearers only (James 1:19-20, 22).

Are you quick to get angry over personal attacks? Do you desire to control a conversation by changing the narrative of a discussion shared by others? Do you get defensive when people talk about race or racism? Do you tend to dismiss the fact that racism is pervasive and systemic? If so, you are neither producing the righteousness of God nor acting in the freedom the Lord provides. Friendships with people who look and think differently than you provide a good context in which to practice listening. I encourage you to intentionally reach out to people of a different ethnicity than your own, and invite them to dinner. Seek to build relationships with them by patiently listening to their positions and without offering correction.

Remember Our Freedom

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).

The Church is ethnically and culturally diverse. So, don’t expect everyone to hold onto your personal ethnic or cultural values and practices. Do not make legalistic disciples by seeking to assimilate people into your racially dominant framework. Instead, let us remember that we are no longer bound by the law but have received the grace of Jesus Christ. Christian relationships should be mutually beneficial. One person should never demand that the other think and act exactly like himself. To do so would dilute the beauty and majesty of God’s diverse creation. As God gives grace in our cultural, contextualized expressions, so should you.

Be United

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Ephesians 2:14-16).

Church congregations sometimes sing hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross.” Too often we cling to and cherish the old, rugged cross of Christ but fail to cherish and cling to each other. Instead of merely thinking black, brown and white people should pursue racial reconciliation, the Christian conversation must shift. It is the cross of Christ that reconciles us, first to God, and then makes us one unified people group who can experience life together in peaceful harmony. For we are not to be enemies of one another, showing hostility because of our different skin colors. Rather, we are now members of the same body with equal value in Christ, equal position before God, and equal access to a relationship with God Almighty.

Give Honor to Others

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor (Romans 12:9-10).

It can be hard to accept defeat, whether in a game of chess, in a difficult conversation, or when facing a very significant loss. Our competitive drive kicks in, and we strive to win our own way in conversations and in relationships. God says our love toward others should be rooted in the thoughtful and purposeful giving of honor. When was the last time you sought to honor someone who had an opinion that was not sinful, yet different from yours?

Stay the Course

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith (Galatians 6:9-10).

Don’t stop doing what is right because you are uncomfortable or fearful. Don’t give up on the work even though it is hard. Don’t take shortcuts, such as saying, “I’ll pray for you” without knowing what struggles are in the person’s heart. Ask instead, “In what way can I join you in prayer?” Today is a great day to enter the world of a person of color. Learn a new language, celebrate a cultural holiday together, send a birthday or thank you card, and let your brothers and sisters in Christ know that you love them.

People often ask me the question, “What can we do to help fight racism?” I encourage you to start by believing that the Bible’s teaching is necessary and sufficient. There was a time in my life when I believed that the Bible was true but resisted its authority over my life. Now, more than ever before, God’s Word directs my steps on the Christian journey and offers hope of eternal joy in the living Word, Jesus Christ. Knowing and applying the Bible is necessary for the Christian, for it declares the will of God for us, including how we are to address issues of racism. This same Word sufficiently answers our questions about life and should be the womb that incubates all of our theological practices. I pray that you are both convicted and convinced of the Bible’s authority over your life. As you listen to God, may you be transformed by his Word!

This article originally appeared here.

10 Prayers to Pray in a Pandemic

By
James Emery White
-
communicating with the unchurched

1. Father, help me to so honor you through my online presence and chosen words and spirit that people will see, hear and feel Jesus through everything I post.

2. Please help me, whenever I am tempted to focus on how I am being inconvenienced and poorly served, to instead think of how I might serve others.

3. Dear Lord, may I long to privately worship you as much as I long to return to publicly worshiping you.

4. I pray for my black brothers and sisters. I cannot imagine what this time is like for them, but I can pray for them. Father, forgive me for any and all racism, and help me to work for justice at every opportunity. I confess I do not often know what that means, so please, through my own efforts to learn and the power of the Holy Spirit to convict, lead me.

(or)

4. I pray for my white brothers and sisters. Their eyes are opening, and I pray for full vision. Father, forgive me for any and all racism on my part, and keep me from any and all bitterness and resentment. Do not let the evil one gain any foothold in my spirit. Strengthen me to never tire as I work for justice in ways that continually honor you and lift up all of humanity.

5. I need you to give me financial faith that I do not have, obedience I do not want to give, and trust that does not come naturally.

6. I pray this to my God: I may not know the reasons for all that has happened, but I have faith in the One who does.

7. Father, I know how much I thirst for grace for my own life—help me to be quick to offer the same drink to others around me.

8. Somehow, someway, help me to rise above the seeds being sown all around me—seeds of fear, division and anger. Instead, somehow, someway, help me to plant trust, unity and love.

9. Dear God, I am online so much. I offer this Scripture as a prayer and plea to you: “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes…” (Psalm 101:3a, NASB)

*10. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Sources

*Known as the “Jesus Prayer,” it dates back to at least the 5th century.

This article originally appeared here.

Arbitration Settled Between James MacDonald and Harvest Bible Chapel

By
Jesse T. Jackson
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communicating with the unchurched

Former Harvest Bible Chapel Pastor James MacDonald has settled an arbitration with Harvest Bible Chapel who had removed him as senior pastor back in February 2019, according to The Roys Report. The arbitration concerned who owned MacDonald’s former broadcast ministry Walk in the Word. The terms of the arbitration are under a protective order.

Related to the arbitration on May 18, 2020, the Harvest Bible Chapel elders released an update that read as follows:

On May 16, 2019, we received a letter informing us that James MacDonald is pursuing arbitration with Harvest Bible Chapel through the Institute for Christian Conciliation. Arbitration is a method used to resolve disputes outside of the courts.  Essentially, it allows a group of arbitrators to listen to arguments presented by both parties and then the arbitrators decide how this issue will be settled. Both parties submit to the decision of the arbitrators as it is legally binding. This is not a lawsuit in a court of law, and James has not sued our church by taking this action. The issues of this claim primarily involve the termination of James MacDonald and the ownership of Walk in the Word.

As the leaders of this church, we are committing to communicating about this arbitration process as it progresses. There is no desire to keep this matter unnecessarily private. We expect this to take months, not weeks. The Elders and Church Leadership Team are united in their position that James MacDonald’s termination was with cause and that Walk in the Word is a ministry of Harvest Bible Chapel.

Pray for God to get the glory in this. He is in control. We are His servants.

Court documents recently filed by James MacDonald’s lawyer show that a settlement between Harvest Bible Chapel and MacDonald was reached.

The reached settlement is under a ‘Protective Order,’ according to the court documents filed. This means that neither party can discuss the settlement and that the results of matter must remain confidential. As of this report, Harvest Bible Chapel has not posted any announcement updates on their website nor made any other public announcement regarding the settlement.

James MacDonald’s Recent History

In January of 2019, MacDonald took an ‘indefinite sabbatical‘ from preaching and leadership from Harvest Bible Chapel, a church in Chicago of which he was one of the co-founders in 1988. The church started with 18 members and grew to over 12,000 members and seven campuses. It was named one of Outreach Magazine’s Fastest Growing Churches in America in 2015. MacDonald’s ‘indefinite sabbatical’ was taken as a result of allegations that started from former elders who released a letter charging him with “self-promotion…love of money…domineering and bullying…abusive speech…outbursts of anger…[and] making misleading statements.” In a report years later from investigative journalist Julie Roys published by World Magazine and testimonials from Chicago’s ‘shock jock’ Mancow Muller, Harvest Bible Chapel was forced to investigate the claims against their senior pastor. The church then dropped a lawsuit they had filed against some of the former elders and Roys.

At the time MacDonald took the sabbatical, he said that he ‘wounded others without cause‘ due to his battling of injustice, hurt, anger and fear. He took full blame and said in a elder update to Harvest Bible Chapel members that he acknowledged that he hurt people in ‘certain relationships’. He said, “I have carried great shame about this pattern in certain relationships that can only be called sin. I am grieved that people I love have been hurt by me in ways they felt they could not express to me directly and have not been able to resolve. I blame only myself for this and want to devote my entire energy to understanding and addressing these recurring patterns.“

Less than a month after MacDonald started his ‘indefinite sabbatical,’ the elders at Harvest Bible Chapel announced they were removing senior pastor James MacDonald from the church entirely. This was due to inappropriate recordings that were played on Mancow Muller‘s popular Chicago radio show at that time. A few months later, Muller accused MacDonald of attempting to hire a hitman to kill one of his rivals.

Moody Publishers and LifeWay stopped selling MacDonald’s books and materials associated with the author/pastor, shortly after the news of his removal had been announced.

Since being removed from Harvest Bible Chapel, MacDonald has sued former friend and popular Chicago radio host Mancow Muller for defamation, invasion of privacy, eavesdropping, and emotional distress. The lawsuit that seeks $50,000 in damages is still ongoing. MacDonald started a Home Church Network earlier this year that is targeted toward those who “struggle to get to a church or to stay in a church, or to find a church with the teaching, worship and service opportunities that match your passions.” It was also reported in July of this year that his $1.6 million dollar residence in Elgin, Illinois was in danger of foreclosure.

From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 in 90 Hours: Bible Reading Marathon Underway

By
Stephanie Martin
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communicating with the unchurched

Despite some changes because of the coronavirus pandemic, the annual reading of God’s never-changing Word is currently taking place in America’s capital. The 31st Bible Reading Marathon, facilitated by the ministry Seedline International, began Saturday afternoon and will wrap up on Wednesday.

Every verse of Scripture is being read in a 90-hour span from the Faith & Liberty building in Washington, D.C., near the U.S. Supreme Court building. Politicians, pastors, and missionaries are participating in the event, which exhorts America “to return to God’s precepts.” 

Changes to the 2020 Bible Reading Marathon

Because of the pandemic, organizers moved the five-day event from spring to September. They also had to move it from the West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol, which is currently unavailable due to inauguration preparations.

Also new for 2020 are “virtual” participants, including missionaries serving in other countries. People unable to travel to Washington, D.C., could sign up for reading slots between 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. “We didn’t want to exclude anybody because of COVID,” says Keith Davidson, founder of Indiana-based Seedline International. Seedline, a Bible-distribution ministry, took the reins of the Bible Reading Marathon in 2019, when almost 500 readers participated. This year, Davidson estimates that 300 readers are involved, with about one-fourth doing so virtually.

“This read, especially this year, is needed across our country,” says Davidson. “I think our nation’s hope lies in the word of God. I think the Bible is our foundation and can give us that duration and give us hope to get back to where…America once was.”

In conjunction with the marathon, Seedline is providing Bibles in more than 100 languages to help people around the world participate in the readings.

Who’s Reading This Year

Among the readers for the 2020 Bible Reading Marathon are Oklahoma Senator James Lankford and the following members of Congress: Mo Brooks (Alabama), Jeffrey Duncan (South Carolina), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Vicky Hartzler (Missouri), Jody Hice (Georgia), and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Washington).

Pastors reading Scripture this year include the Rev. Michael Hall (the marathon’s previous organizer), the Rev. Robert Turrill (CEO of Evangelical Church Alliance), and Pastor Charles Koo of the Chinese Community Church of Washington, D.C. Other prominent faith leaders taking part include Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, Tim Goeglein of Focus on the Family, and Peggy Nienaber of Faith & Liberty DC.

The Bible Reading Marathon can be viewed on Facebook Live and YouTube.

On its website, Faith & Liberty DC notes, “If EVER Capitol Hill needed to resound with the Word of God, it is now! And that’s exactly what is going to happen! A national pandemic will NOT stop it! Bitter partisan bickering will NOT stop it! And, anarchists, rioters and protestors will NOT stop it!” The site continues, “While the US Capitol Bible Reading Marathon might look or sound a bit different this year, the powerful TRUTHS contained in the Sacred Text remain the same! And they still accomplish the purposes for which they are sent forth!”

Feucht: God Is Using the Virus to Revive a ‘Tame’ Church

By
Jessica Lea
-
communicating with the unchurched

Political activist and Bethel worship leader Sean Feucht took his Let Us Worship movement to Colorado Springs Saturday following an event in Fort Collins, Colorado, the night before. Feucht said he believes that God is using the challenges Americans are facing due to COVID-19 to bring revival to the American church, which he suggested has gotten comfortable and “tame.”

“What if maybe we’ve gotten just a little too safe?” asked Feucht, who said that while he believes the virus in itself is evil, he also thinks God is using it to “provoke the church.”

“I feel like maybe we just are called to return to the wildness,” said the worship leader. And that “return,” or revival, is exactly what he sees happening in the church in the U.S. right now: “I believe the enemy overplayed his hand. I believe there is a back half to 2020 that is going to get crazy…I just feel like there’s a spirit of vertical, audacious, radical praise that God is unlocking.” 

Let Us Worship in Colorado Springs 

Saturday’s Let Us Worship event took place at 10 a.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Colorado Springs. According to Feucht, it was the first of his “worship protests” he has held in the morning instead of the evening. “I didn’t know if people would show up,” he joked, saying that getting to worship in front of Colorado’s Front Range “is like a dream for me.” 

let us worship

During the event, Feucht led attendees in songs such as “Raise a Hallelujah,” “Way Maker,” and “I Am Free.” People sometimes ask why he is holding these outdoor worship gatherings, said Feucht, and in answer, he referenced Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. As people were crying out and rejoicing over Jesus, the religious leaders told him to tell the people to be quiet. Jesus responded, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

“We bring worship into places of devastation,” said the worship leader. For 2,000 years, the church has worshipped “through persecution, through pandemic, through crisis,” he said. “It’s who we are. This is not political, this is biblical.” 

Feucht explained how the Let Us Worship movement started, saying that a few months ago, he was ready to leave California, which is sometimes a “tough place to live.” He had tried running for Congress but lost the primary for U.S. House California District 3 to incumbent John Garamendi. Then the governor of California issued an order banning churches from singing. “Not only our church is closed and we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he said, “but our governor is telling us that we can’t sing! And I remember looking at my wife and I was like, is this still America?…And I felt like the Lord said, ‘You know what? Just take the party outside…Go to the Golden Gate Bridge, and begin to prophesy.’”

So he did, and that set off a “grassroots, wild, and undomesticated” movement that continued on to Huntington Beach, Portland, Seattle, and other locations throughout the U.S. Said Feucht, “I discovered that the church was beginning to get her sound back, her roar back. And I feel like that’s what God is doing in Colorado.”

“This is a courageous hour for the church of America, and I want to thank God for courageous leaders in Colorado Springs,” said the worship leader before asking the crowd to “give it up” for the city’s pastors.

Charles Stanley Stepping Down as Pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta

By
Megan Briggs
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communicating with the unchurched

Dr. Charles Stanley has served First Baptist Church Atlanta for over 50 years. The 88-year-old pastor announced this Sunday that he is officially stepping down and handing over his position to Dr. Anthony George. However, he will remain visible in some capacity in the church as Pastor Emeritus. Stanley, who has often said he doesn’t believe in retirement, assured the congregation that he would not be idle in this next season of his life.

“As much as I love being your pastor, I know in my heart this season has come to an end,” Stanley told the congregation via a short video message on Sunday. Stanley made his comments following the message given by George. 

I’m Not Retiring, Stanley Says

Stanley told the congregation that it has been a difficult decision to step down as he loves the church. “I love all of you and I love all that God has done through our partnership together.” 

He admitted he initially resisted the call to come to First Baptist Church Atlanta, but now feels grateful that “God saw fit to allow me to serve as your pastor for more than 50 years.” Stanley thanked the congregation for “extending grace and mercy” to him and his family over the years—especially during difficult seasons. “I have few regrets and I have many wonderful memories.”

Stanley, who famously said he doesn’t believe in retirement, indicated he will focus his energy elsewhere. “I will focus the next season of my life on my opportunities at In Touch,” he said, referring to the ministry he started in 1977.  “I will continue to preach the Gospel as long as God allows,” Stanley added. In Touch Ministries distributes Stanley’s preaching via video, magazine, and radio to a global audience. According to the In Touch website, Stanley’s messages are broadcast “on more than 1,200 radio outlets, 130 television stations/networks, and language projects in more than 50 languages.”

Despite the fact that he won’t be preaching regularly or leading First Baptist Church Atlanta, Stanley says his goal remains the same: “To get the truth of the Gospel to as many people as possible as quickly as possible in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.” The veteran pastor is also confident in George’s ability to lead the church. “I have no doubt there are many great days ahead for the First Baptist Church of Atlanta.” 

New Pastor Praises Stanley’s Contributions to First Baptist Church Atlanta

Following Stanley’s video announcement, George thanked him for “being strong and of good courage through every battle you’ve had to fight, through every trial you’ve had to overcome.” George, who has served as the church’s associate pastor for eight years now, went on to praise the senior pastor for his decades-long service to the church and to express how much the congregation loves him:

Serving you as your assistant, Dr. Stanley, and serving this church as its associate pastor for these 8 and a half years has truly been the honor of a lifetime. It will be your legacy, sir, that is my standard. The standard that will inspire me to always do my best with God’s help for as long as God gives me to serve here…I can say with absolute confidence that there has never been a church anywhere, at any time in history, that loves its pastor more than First Baptist Atlanta loves Charles Stanley. We will forever love you and be indebted to you for your faithful service across 51 years.

Stanley moved from Florida to take an associate pastor position at First Baptist Atlanta in 1969. Two years later, Stanley took over as senior pastor of the church. In addition to serving the church, Stanley also held the position of President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1984 and 1985.

On Sunday, he told the congregation that he was grateful that he and his wife, Anna, got to raise their two children, Pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia and Becky Stanley Broderson, of Dallas, Texas, in the church. Anna Stanley passed away in 2014. 

“My hope is that the greatest days are still ahead,” Stanley said in conclusion. 

This article has been updated to correct an error. We originally referred to Dr. Anthony George as Dr. Anthony Joyce.

Chuck Swindoll: Avoiding Common Mistakes Pastors Make When Preparing to Preach God’s Word

By
Andrew Hess
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communicating with the unchurched

Chuck Swindoll is the founder and senior pastor–teacher of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas. But Chuck’s listening audience extends far beyond a local church body, as Insight for Living airs on major Christian radio markets around the world. Chuck’s extensive writing ministry has also served the body of Christ worldwide, and his leadership as president and now chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary has helped prepare and equip a new generation of men and women for ministry. Chuck and his wife, Cynthia, his partner in life and ministry, have four grown children, ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

Key Questions for Chuck Swindoll:

Where did your passion to proclaim the word of God begin?

We live in a day where there is so much great Bible teaching online. How important is it for people to study the Bible themselves?

For those of us who teach the word regularly, what are some common mistakes we need to avoid when we study Scripture?

Key Quotes from Chuck Swindoll:

“My contagious enthusiasm for spiritual things began probably at home.”

“He’s not hiding from us. He’s revealed his word; he’s revealed his will; it’s all there for you to discover.

“Richard Custer said, ‘Today we don’t need richer people; we don’t need more intelligent people; we certainly don’t need busier people; we need deeper people.’”

“I certainly do appreciate those that love the Lord and are teaching his word, but I learn the most when I dig in for myself.”

“Everybody living today faces something impossible…You know what? Not in the hands of God. And what a difference it makes when you realize ‘I can take what looks like an impossibility and give it to him.’”

“We’re all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

“What’s the rush? It’s not a question of how much did you get through the Bible, how much did the Bible get through you?”

“God took 1,500 years to record his word; used 40 different authors; 40 different writers to give us his word. And we let it collect dust?”

“Wycliffe put [the Bible] in English and went to the stake for it, because it was heretical…the reformers paid the price. Now we’ve got the Bible in our own language and what do we do? We rely on somebody else to feed us? Something’s wrong with that picture. No wonder we’re stunted in our spiritual growth.”

“We’re living in the 21st century, but the book was written in the first century and earlier. So build a bridge.”

“If you feed them well, you’ll never be fired. Sheep come where there’s great food.”

“I’m not amazing. I’m just a hard-working, disciplined, careful reader and preacher of the Scriptures. You can be that, too. Anyone can do that.”

[SUBSCRIBE] For more ChurchLeaders podcasts click here!

Links Mentioned by Chuck Swindoll in the Show:

Logos Bible software 

Searching the Scriptures 

Chuck Swindoll on ChurchLeaders:

Chuck Swindoll: Illustrating So People Will Listen

Don’t Burn Bridges

By
Sam Luce
-
communicating with the unchurched

Remember when Facebook was for sharing photos of your children and videos of otters holding hands? Me neither. Social media has become a battlefield of conflicting ideas. A minefield of potentially explosive issues. It has gone from a digital scrapbook to a digital equivalent of a dual. Every post seems to be about the defense of a person or idea and with those who disagree hurling horribly generalized caricatures of who they think you are based on what party they think you are a part of.

As Christians, we have to guard against this. Some of the most scathing reprimands of scripture are towards those who can not control their tongues. In James 1 where we famously quote the passage that states “True religion is taking care of the widows and orphans.” This is a feel-good statement that is completely true and we love it. You know what it says in the verse right in front of it. James 1:26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle (control) his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

Every sin that we commit is first a sin of the heart and second a sin of our mouth before it is a sin of our actions. Therefore what we think about, what we desire affects what we say. How we speak and what we type are pretty good indications of the state of our hearts.

Here is the bad news. None of us do this. Why? Because the Bible tells us our heart is desperately wicked. Kierkegaard called this the crooked timber of the heart. Our words will not change until our hearts have been transformed.

A preacher I respect greatly said this: “[James] calls for us to have a tamed tongue. And if we do, it’s evidence that we’re a Christian. And if we do, it’s evidence that we’re walking in obedience. And as you look at your life, beloved, if you see those things coming out of your mouth that ought not to come, you need to confess it as sin and turn from it. And how you react to those times when bitter water comes out of the sweet fountain is the key to your spiritual strength, the key to your spiritual effect and power.”

Our speech will not change until our hearts are transformed. Here is the good news: That is what God does best. He takes our hearts of stone and gives us a new heart with new desires and new words. Will we still slip in our speech online and offline? Yes. Should we strive to grow in the grace that God provides and be more kind in what we say think and do? Yes. This is a work God does and we join with him growing in his likeness day by day.

Here are a few things I am trying to do better when engaging people online.

  1. Ask more questions and make fewer statements – Look to learn not only prove a point.
  2. Delete more comments than you publish – If you know me, you would say there is no way you do this I have read what you have published online. I delete A LOT of comments, and so should you.
  3. Clarify when you don’t understand don’t assume you understand – This is essential offline as well as online. Communication doesn’t happen when two people speak. It occurs when two people speak, and there is understanding.
  4. If you know the person in real life call or text them to have an honest conversation about something you don’t understand – Use online disagreement to build bridges, not burn them. Talking in person builds bridges torching someone’s wall burns bridges.
  5. Take regular breaks from social media – I regularly take breaks to keep from becoming an angry, anxious, annoying person. You need to take more breaks than you do.
  6. Try to verify if a story is true before you share it – This is becoming more and more difficult to do even some fact-checking sites have become politicized. Try to use original sources, give away credit, and use common sense. If a story sounds like something, your craziest friends often say it’s probably not true.
  7. Try and stay friends with people who think differently than you. The mute button may be your friend at times, so use it. – Try not to burn bridges. Sometimes you will have to mute people online so you can stay friends offline, and that’s ok. Offline friends are more important than online friends.
  8. Know when to walk away, know when to run – Sometimes comments get ugly fast. Don’t go there. Walk away.
  9. When you overstep, and you will apologize without expecting them to apologize in return – If you only follow one of these pointers, let it be this one. I had to use it this week. I had to text a friend and apologize for what I said it was too strong and didn’t convey what I wanted to say because it was not seasoned with grace.

We all need God’s help to control our speech so that our thoughts, words, and actions convey the grace that is ours in Christ. What you say and what you type will signal to a watching world a heart that has been transformed by grace. May this be more and more true of us every day.

This article about don’t burn bridges originally appeared here.

Look Death in the Face

By
Paul David Tripp
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communicating with the unchurched

It’s the one area of human life where there is no discrimination or bias whatsoever. It might also be the only time where everyone agrees and acts similarly.

It’s the harsh and inescapable reality of death.

Today someone is at a hospital bedside watching the life drain from a loved one. Today someone will get that horrible call that a close friend has suddenly died. Today someone will receive the news that they don’t have long to live.

I vividly remember my dad slipping in and out of a coma. I knew the end was around the corner, and although I sat there in silence, I was screaming inside. I wanted to hear his voice one more time. I wanted him to be tender, to be my dad one final time. I wanted him to get up and hug me one last time.

People say that death is normal, but this moment was unprecedented. I never felt more unprepared, and I never wanted something to end more than those horrible few hours. As I watched my dad’s life slip away, I couldn’t help thinking, “This is not the way it’s supposed to be!”

Death feels so fundamentally unnatural because it is unnatural. Yes, death is the inevitable end to all things now, but it was not part of the original plan.

God created Adam and Eve to be forever beings. He placed them in a lush garden where life was to give way to life on into eternity. Then death entered the world when Adam and Eve treasured what was on the other side of God’s boundaries more than they did the beauty of life forever with God.

Death is dreadful, but it can be a gift and a teacher. It forces you to face the impermanence of the world around you and its inability to fulfill you. Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19).

Death and decay can open your eyes, inform your heart, and give you hope. Yes, you will still feel the sting and pain of loss, but its power to paralyze you will be broken when you understand that you cannot be robbed of life by something that was not designed to give you life.

(Alternatively, if you deny this reality, you will look for life in dying things—and that never works.)

God’s plan is not for you to get as much as you can out of life and then die. Your Father will lovingly allow you to experience death and decay so that you will be liberated from your bondage to the creation and begin to find rest in the power, presence, and love of the Creator.

Look Death In The Face

Only when you accept the terrible news of death can you begin to find hope in the good news of life—a life that begins in the here and now and lasts forever.

The way to experience abundant life today is to face the inescapable reality of death that will come tomorrow. When you look death in the face, you become wise, and ultimately it can provide you with peace.

God bless,

Paul David Tripp

REFLECTION QUESTIONS ON LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE

1. When was the last time you experienced the death of a loved one? Why was it so painful?

2. When was the last time you experienced the death of a dream or the decay of an idol? How did you respond?

3. What are some of your current favorite treasures on earth? List the variety of ways that they can be destroyed or stolen.

4. Have you been previously robbed of life by something that was not designed to give you life? What lessons did you learn? Did this liberate you from your bondage to the creation in any way?

5. Do you know someone afraid of dying? What are they most afraid of? How can you use this entry gate as a way to share the gospel message with them?

This content about look death in the face was originally posted by Paul Tripp on www.paultripp.com

Are You a Kidult?: The Importance of Childlike Faith

By
Samarah Vermeer
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communicating with the unchurched

I’m not always up on the current slang, so here’s a new word that stuck out to me: kidult.  I saw it on a breakfast cereal ad promising that the adult in you will like the nutrition and the kid in you will like the flavor.  Kidult is actually listed on dictionary.com!  Defined as an adult interested in forms of entertainment intended for children.  Hey, I’m 32 and I’ve been known to watch Phineas and Ferb when there’s nothing suitable on TV. :)

A lot of time in children’s ministry is spent training children to mature.  And I firmly believe it’s a Biblical mandate!  We are warned in Hebrews 5:12-14 that we should grow to the point where we are able to teach others and not require someone to teach us the first principles of God’s Word again.  Milk is for infants we’re told and solid food for full grown men.  Yes, our job is to train up a generation that will go out and train another generation.  We don’t want students who sit in high chairs crying for more milk.

We are also told to become like a child to enter the Kingdom of heaven or to be great (Matthew 18:3-4).  We’re called to grow up and yet preserve our childlike faith.  How do we teach kids to mature and at the same time not lose the childlike qualities that Jesus praised?  Bible commentaries mention key characteristics of little children and they don’t mean childish.  Here are a few…

1. Trusting.  Trust comes naturally to children.  As time passes and we experience disappointment or broken promises, we start to lose that childlike trust.  Trust is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength and truth of God.  “Every word of God is tried and purified; He is a shield to those who trust and take refuge in Him,” Proverbs 30:5. We should foster this quality in our students.  If students can trust our word, it’s easier for them to trust God’s Word.  For ways to cultivate an environment of trust, you can read this article.

2. Lowly.  Lowly describes a position of humility.  I believe we all start in this position; before the temptation to be proud of one’s own achievements sets in.  Matthew 23:12 says, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  Humility matters.  Jesus humbled himself – as a baby and later at the cross – for us.  He knew better and could do better than anyone else on earth, but He never acted proud.  Any “I’m better than you” attitude should be curbed in favor of a humble, lowly attitude in our students.

3. Loving.  Loving means showing love or great care.  It can also mean tenderhearted.  Dr. Caroline Leaf, a Christian cognitive neuroscientist, says that our brains are wired for love and through life we learn fear.  God programmed us to love!  To be loving comes naturally to kids.  Is your classroom a safe place of love?  Do we call children by name?  Do we let them share from their heart?  I’ve been amazed at some of the innocent, tenderhearted things kids say when I give them an opportunity to share a testimony.

4. Forgiving.  Think about it; who is better at holding grudges?  Kids or adults?  Can we all break out in song right now, “Let it go, let it go…!”  Am I the only one who needs that reminder?!  Being willing and able to forgive comes more naturally to children.  Ephesians 4:32, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”  We should never outgrow a forgiving nature.

As I look at these characteristics of childlike faith, I can’t help but see Jesus.  What a perfect balance He is of maturity and childlike faith!  I want to impress these qualities on my class; on myself.  I want to be a kidult.  I want to train up kidults.  And my definition of kidult is those who have put away childish things, but never lose their childlike faith.  

10 Characteristics of a Church on Mission

By
Scott Thomas
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The Tension to Be on Mission

The church in every generation is called to bring the good news of the kingdom into a spiritual encounter with the aspirations and challenges of that culture where it resides. Simply, believers are on a mission from God in their respective communities. To engage today’s culture with the Gospel requires the formation of a Gospel community – the church of Jesus Christ – to be a visible representation, witness, and engaging instrument of the sovereign outreaching hand of God in our culture. In many churches, this may require a new vision, new ways of thinking, and new patterns of behavior (Matt. 9:16-17). This means pre-believers are encouraged to be included in the context of all of the church functions as they make small steps toward Christ (Luke 19:10).

Since we are in Christ, we have a missionary identity. We are adopted into a missionary family. We serve a missionary God. Mission becomes part of our identity, because our Father is a missionary God and we resemble Him as a child of God. So the church is a missionary church, with missionary people, that do missionary things. It is who we are, and it is also what we do. Mission is not something we tack on to the list of options as a Christian. To be Christian is to be on mission. It’s who we are, and it is what we do.

Ten Characteristics of a Missional Church

1.  The missional church is committed to the authoritative, infallible, inerrant, inspired Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:14-17; Acts 2:42).

The authority of all missionary work is founded in the truth that God has a clear word to communicate to the world. The Bible’s authoritative word—not just the casual observance and even religious obeisance—guides the missional church toward understanding the person and work of Jesus throughout all of Scripture (Luke 24:44).

Although this is admittedly a unique description of missional, it cannot be an assumed reality. I think the distinguishing difference between emergent and emerging is the view of the Bible. I no longer use the words, but to clarify, a missional (emerging) church is motivated by the words of God to proclaim the timeless Gospel in a timely method. David Garrison said the one thing that keeps the reproduction of churches from fragmenting into a thousand heresies like a crack splintering across a car windshield is the authority of God’s word. Garrison believes this is one of the characteristics of every church planting movement.

2.  Understands the centrality of the Gospel expressed in all aspects of a person’s life (1 Cor. 15:1-4; 2:2; Gal. 6:14)

In Galatians 2:14, Paul deals with Peter’s racial pride and cowardice by saying their “conduct was not in step with the truth of the Gospel.” The Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life—spiritual, psychological, corporate, social—by thinking, hoping, and living out the implications of the Gospel. The Gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving. The missional church is not dependant on programs or methods, but rather by the transforming power of the Gospel. GOCN began with the indicator of a missional church as one that proclaims the Gospel audibly and visibly. “Being Gospel-centered means being both word-centered and mission-centered,” says Steve Timmis, Director of Acts 29 Western Europe. The Gospel is not separated from the authority and effectiveness of the Word and is not devoid of practicing the Gospel through mission living. It was Newbigin who described the local congregation as ‘the hermeneutic of the gospel.’ Newbigin’s idea is very simple: people understand the Gospel by looking at the people of God. It is the church in time and space – the local church – that expresses the Gospel and interprets it within its own cultural setting.

Through the Gospel, He rescues us from a life of self-serving mission to participate in a life of God-serving, Christ-glorifying mission. We are remade into missional people by the redeeming work of the Spirit and the Son.

3.  Gatherings are characterized by God-centered worship, preaching of the Gospel, prayer, Lord’s Supper by penitent souls, and baptism as a response to the Gospel (John 4:23-24). 

Worship is the central act by which the community corporately celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and promised future.[5]  A missional church worships God in an authentic way, as we worship a Savior who left us here to be captured by His love and pursue His mission through His redemption. The missional church encourages what Tim Keller calls “evangelistic worship”—making worship comprehensible to unbelievers leading to commitment.

Principles for Public Missional Worship

Bob Kauflin reminds us the principles for public missional worship. “Paul challenges the Corinthians to take unbelievers into account when they gather. He insists that they keep the unbeliever in mind as they exercise spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:23-25)…Whether it’s raised hands, formal liturgies, or unspoken standards, we need to see them through the eyes of an unbeliever.” Kauflin suggests that to significantly impact the unbelievers in a worship gathering, the following should be present:

  1. Authentic passion – enthusiastic expression outwardly what is happening inwardly.
  2. Love – overwhelming unbelievers with genuine love (John 17:21).
  3. The Gospel – clearly proclaimed and faithfully applied in an understandable way.

Why Preaching is Suffering in the Church

Preaching is central to the missional church worship experience. The Reformers were convinced that the heart of true biblical worship was the preaching of the Word of God. Al Mohler said that preaching is suffering a loss in today’s church due to six factors.

  1. Lack of confidence in the power of the [spoken and written] word – failing to realize the transformative power of the word communicated orally and literarily.
  2. Infatuation with technology – over-dependence on graphics, images, film clips, and technological wizardry.
  3. Embarrassment before the biblical text – lacking confidence in the Bible’s authority.
  4. Emptying of biblical content – failing to teach the actual text of Scripture and resorting to pithy points.
  5. Focus on felt needs – anthrocentric preaching as opposed to theocentric preaching.
  6. Absence of the Gospel – turning texts into literary articles, practical steps, or morals to follow without any clear presentation of sin, redemption, and reconciliation.

Preaching of the word has life-transforming power producing repentance, restitution, confession, reconciliation, comfort, joy, encouragement, wisdom as well as indignation, anger, and offense by the stubborn hearted person. The missional church seeks to make disciples with Spirit-empowered preaching of God’s truth or as Martyn Lloyd Jones said, “Preaching is theology coming through a man that is on fire. John Piper described preaching. He said 1) the goal of preaching is the glory of God. 2) The ground of preaching is the cross of Christ, and 3) the gift of preaching is the power of the Holy Spirit.

The missional worship gathering additionally incorporates public reading of Scripture, prayer for the glory of God to be expressed through the suffering body and community, and response to the Spirit of God and the word of God expressed demonstrably with undefined regularity through baptism and communion. Although the worship gathering is not primarily for us, the body is instructed how to participate in the diverse liturgy as committed followers of Jesus.

Elements of Authentic Worship

The missional church experiences authentic worship by beginning with a true vision of the living God (Isaiah 6:1-8).

  1. We must first see God, as He is—our great King and Judge sitting upon a throne, lofty and exalted (Isaiah 6:1-4).
  2. Secondly, authentic worship leads to confession of sin both individually and corporately (Isaiah 6:5). We address our sin, admit our uncleanness, and seek His mercy and grace.
  3. The third place where authentic worship leads us is proclamation of the Gospel (Isaiah 6:6-7). As we realize our utter sinfulness, the missional church proclaims the redemption of sin through the work of Jesus on the cross—where we glory.
  4. Lastly, a missional church experiences authentic worship with a response (Isaiah 6:8). By excluding the cross, the blood atonement, the sacrifice, and the cost of sin, our worship is horribly weakened, and as a result, our missionary involvement will be stifled.

4.  A missional church understands it has been sent by God as missionaries in their own culture (Matt. 4:19; John 20:21; Acts 16:20; 17:6) to make disciples of all peoples (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). 

The missional church is more than a gathering of people with a missions program (considering itself “mission’s minded”) or that has a financial commitment to mission works or a missions committee. The missional church is vested in God’s mission to a specific place, people, and a particular time in history (Acts 17:15). Mark Driscoll said, “If the Gospel is the seed of God’s powerful work in our lives and world, then the culture is the soil into which it is planted.” He further adds, “Understanding the soil helps the missional church know which weeds of moral sin and theological error will need to be pulled up so as not to choke out the growth of the Gospel and church.”

The Challenge of Gospel Contextualization

Missionary to India Lesslie Newbigin stated that contextualization has been discussed among those involved in foreign missions for years as a necessary means to proclaiming the Gospel into the language and culture in a way to “make sense” to those whom the Gospel is being addressed. Newbigin’s point is that we now face the same challenge of contextualization in our post-Christian Western world—our neighbors, friends, co-workers, and even family. The irony is that our older churches that applauded the non-compromised contextualization of the Gospel by the foreign missionaries that they sent with prayers and money are the same churches that now struggle with that missionary approach in our Western culture with peoples from diverse ethnicities, languages, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, and ages.

We redemptively engage peoples and cultures by sharing, showing, and embodying Christ in our context. This includes evangelism, cultural engagement, counseling, empathy, and celebration. It’s bringing the renewing power of the whole Gospel into the whole city through the whole church. It is not realigning our Bible to the culture, but by God’s grace, realigning the culture to the Bible.

Mission is a characteristic of God.

Mission is a characteristic of God. He’s a sending God. He sends His Son and sends His Spirit to renew the world. The Son sends His believers by the authority of God as He was sent. So mission doesn’t start and end with us. It starts and ends with God.

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John 17:14-19)

5.  Boldly & intentionally promotes the Gospel through making disciples and church planting globally through collaborative expressions of mercy and generosity

A missional church is not simply focused on the growth of neither the single local church nor its continued physical presence in the community. Its goal is to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20). When a church focuses on its own promotion, it has a tendency to use disciples to build a church, resulting in resentment. Conversely, a church that focuses on making disciples will use the corporate church to promote the Gospel to as many people as possible—both local and global, or what Dr. Bob Roberts refers to as glocal transformation. A missional church sees church planting as the outworking of mission in a community. Its mission work is the establishing of churches glocally. When our mission mindset is to promote the building of churches in multiple contexts, we are more prone to collaborative work with other churches and with a heart of generosity for the advancement of the Gospel in all nations.

6.  A missional church is dependent upon the Holy Spirit to empower and lead believers as agents for evangelizing and making disciples (Acts 1:8; Luke 4:1, 14, 18).

The life of Jesus was empowered, led, and directed by the Holy Spirit. To be dependant upon the Holy Spirit means to live like Jesus as opposed to some strange mystical experience. Jesus gave the Great Commission, as we commonly know it, and He included the prerequisite of Spirit-empowerment to accomplish it. In Luke’s Gospel, for example, Jesus explains the Gospel to His disciples and tells them that as witnesses of His resurrection, they are to proclaim it to others. But He told them to stay in the city until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Jesus promised that He would empower the church through His Holy Spirit as they make disciples (cf. Acts 1:8). “The promise of God’s presence often accompanied His call to service in the Old Testament (e.g. Ex. 3:12; Josh. 1:5); it is not so much a cozy reassurance as a necessary equipment for mission.”

The Great Comforter
The Great Commission comes equipped with the Great Comforter. This promise is fulfilled by the provision of the Holy Spirit—the missionary Spirit sent to witness to the coming of the Kingdom of God (John 13-17; Acts 2:17). Lesslie Newbigin again offers some succinct instruction for us here. “Mission first of all belongs to the Spirit who is sent by Jesus and the church is taken up into that work…Mission flows in the following way: the Father sends the Son; the Son sends the Church and equips it with the Spirit to enable it to carry out its mission…God does not cease to participate in the missionary enterprise with the sending of Jesus. He does not initiate mission with the sending of Jesus and then leave the missionary work to be carried on by a human institution that followed the pattern of Christ without the help of the Spirit.” Newbigin continues, “The active agent of mission is a power that rules, guides, and goes before the church: the free, sovereign, living power of the Spirit of God. Mission is not just something that the church does; it is something that is done by the Spirit, who is Himself the witness.”

A missional church can effectively reflect the power of the Gospel (Romans 1:6) as it depends on the Spirit of God to empower the body for evangelism, discipleship, and Gospel proclamation rather than depending on big events or buildings or programs or methods utilized elsewhere to draw unbelievers to an event. The Apostle Paul explained to the church situated in the pagan, sinful city of Thessalonica that this “Gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thes. 1:5; cf. 1 Peter 1:12). Paul was saying, “I did the speaking, but it was not I. I was used by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the work He intended.”

Some churches put their emphasis on the studying of the Word. While important that we feed our souls, these are typically the intellectual theologians that spend great hours reading and studying in often arguing the finer points of doctrine resulting in pride of knowledge but rarely conversions. Other churches put a majority of their emphasis on the Holy Spirit and are often more interested in an experience than the authoritative Word. The Holy Spirit uses the Word and the Spirit of truth for understanding. A missional church proclaims the truth with boldness through dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:29-33).

7.  Missional churches utilize relationships and sacrificial love as the expressions of love to others in their journey toward faith (Matt. 5:13-16, John 15:12-17, 1 John 4:19-21).

“Christ wants to create ‘a people,’ not merely isolated individuals who believe in Him.” A disciple is a Spirit-empowered follower of Jesus who is united with a Gospel community on mission for all peoples for the glory of God. A recent book by Dan Kimball entitled, “They Like Jesus but Not the Church” is illustrative of our culture’s skepticism with churches and Christians. The culture is not seeing Jesus in the church, and frankly, Christians are not seeing Jesus in the church and are not motivated to engage in authentic Gospel community because they have little reference for it outside of the Bible’s descriptions (Acts 2:42-45; 4:31-35).

God is a missionary God, and God’s primary missionary method is His covenant people. Mankind was made in the image of the triune God. God created us in that image as persons-in-community to be the means by which He would reveal His glory. As a result of sin, we grasp for isolation from God and His church. When the local church allows this proclivity for seclusion, these image bearers of God fall short of His glory.

The missional church moves out across the nations as a movement of people empowered and sent by Jesus while drawing people through its common life as a God-glorifying movement of believers and unbelievers alike back to Jesus. Steve Timmis writes, “Our identity as human beings is found in community. Our identity as Christians is found in Christ’s new community. And our mission takes place through communities of light.”

What community looks like is unique in every setting, just as every family is unique because there are a lot of variables and moving parts. But the family/community works out the details of their common mission because they are equally committed to each other and to their mission as Christ followers. Those in community do not act in isolation, but rather sacrifice their schedules, time, money, conveniences, and individuality to serve the need. It is foreign to us that the believers in the first church sold their possessions and with singleness of heart gave to those in need. This deep unity and collaboration among the first church ignited the Gospel proclamation that turned the world upside down.

The book of Acts describes the Christian community in multiple ways that may lead to even greater deeds than are described in this canonical record.

  1. Self-sacrifice
  2. Commitment to relationships
  3. Pursuit of unity among the community of believers
  4. Goal of a common mission
  5. Deep love

8.  The goal of a missional church is to walk in community with others as Jesus pursues them in His own way and timing (1 Cor. 9:20-23).

This Gospel community includes believers and unbelievers. Jesus was criticized for including non-believers in community.

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” (Matt. 11:19)

Judas was a part of the disciples even as Jesus spoke about letting the tares grow up with the wheat (Matt. 13:24-30; cf. 1 Cor. 2:19). He spoke to the woman at the well when no one else would dare (John 4). Our interaction with unbelievers is not for the saving of mankind or for the building up of our church, but rather for the glory of God.

The witness of Jesus to the lost woman of Samaria can be summarized in the following way and provides for us a basis for our friendship with sinners.

  1. Intentional – He was compelled to go through Samaria when others walked miles out of the way to avoid it (John 4:4).
  2. Conversational – He addressed a common need: water (4:7).
  3. Respectful – Contrary to culture, this male Jew spoke kindly to this disgraceful woman (4:7).
  4. Directional – He directed the conversation away from her perceived issue back to the Gospel (4:10-15; 19-24).
  5. Convictional – He adequately addressed her sin without rubbing her nose in it (4:16-18).
  6. Confrontational – He confronted her with the truth of who He was (4:26).
  7. Missional – He met her on her turf and brought the Gospel to bear in her life, and she became the missional evangelist in Samaria (4:28-30).
  8. Attitudinal – To the broken people, He showed compassion. To the religious people, He demonstrated unacceptance of their self-righteousness. To those who followed Him, He expected nothing less than absolute surrender.

Look over the list of eight ways Jesus approached this woman and examine your heart to see if you interact with lost people in a similar manner.

9.  A missional church is a hands-on training ground for missionary training (Acts 4:13, 31-35).

His mission is nothing short of the redemption of peoples and cultures, the renewal of all creation for His own glory. God’s great, burdensome, and glorious mission is the renewal of all creation! God, in His mercy, has invited us to participate in His mission.

The community of believers provides opportunities, and they practice hospitality for living out the Gospel in word and deed with one another. Church leaders must set the pace for pursuing the mission of Jesus. As Jack Miller noted, churches become “religious cushions” that tranquilize the guilt-ridden person with the religious warmth of its liturgy. Jack said the contributors of these religious cushion churches are the following:

  • Quiet acceptance of churchly dullness as normative
  • Fear of extinction
  • Extreme sensitivity to the negative opinions
  • Demand for comfort – a nice church with a nice pastor preaching a nice sermon about a nice Jesus
  • Unrestrained Gossip

Members of a missional church are expected to serve on the frontlines of the mission. The missionary emphasis of the body overtakes the self-serving individual, and they either hide, escape, or they get trained in living life as a missionary across the street, across the seas, and across the socio-economic, ethnic, religious, and political boundaries.

10.  Godly, biblically qualified elders lead a missional church (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1; Eph. 4).

While most descriptions of a missional church do not include this characteristic, I don’t think it is possible to maintain a missional emphasis without what Jack Miller calls “pacesetting pastors” who continually remind the body of the mission for which Jesus has called us and the Holy Spirit has empowered us to pursue until the return of Jesus.

Titus was commissioned by Paul to establish the churches with qualified elders in Crete to rebuke false teachers, teach sound doctrine, establish godly homes, preach the Gospel of grace, do good works, confront rebellion, and multiply followers of Jesus. The key to straightening out the crooked churches in Crete was the establishing of qualified elders to guide the rest of the body toward the Gospel.

Elders are to be above reproach in every area of their life. The Gospel will never take root in the body until it takes root in the leaders’ lives. Spurgeon writes, “Brothers, I beseech you, keep the old Gospel, and let your souls be filled with it, and then may you be set on fire with it!” A church will never be missional until its elders live missional lives in front of their followers.

The real value of an elder in a missional church is the equipping of non-vocational leaders to lead and share responsibility for the mission and for the discipling of new believers (Eph. 4:11-12). Reproducing churches unleash the whole body to exercise their gifts (1 Cor. 12:8-10) and encourage them to lead others on mission to proclaim the Gospel in new ways and new places in the community. New believers are incorporated quickly in the mission and receive on-the-job training through an organic mentorship rather than top-down control.

Missional or Biblical?

Looking over the description of a missional church, one understands this word to be equated with the pattern set forth in the Bible. The church established by the Apostles was a church on mission. It was missional. It seems that the evangelical church just needed a new word like missional to describe the “Biblical church.”

12 Veteran Tips for Worship Leaders

By
Carlos Whittaker
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I’ve been leading worship as my primary job for almost 15 years.

Every once in a while I like to remind myself of a few things.

1. If you lead regularly in front of thousands, lead regularly in front of 10 or less.

2. If you are leading worship at a church for the first time, don’t you dare spend your time in the green room. 

3. If you are leading worship at a church for the 100th time, don’t you dare spend your time in the green room

4. When preparing for your Sunday, work just as hard as what you will say between songs as what you sing during them.

5. First timers and new believers actually WANT to be told what to do. Career Christians HATE being told what to do. So…Tell them all what to do.

6. Learn to lead without using an instrument.

7. If one of your pastors tells you that you are too fat to sing on stage, truthfully, you probably need to lose some weight. And you probably need to go to another church where they let fat and skinny people sing on stage.

8. Watch your sets back on video. Every one of them.

9. Just because you are a worship leader does not mean you are a song writer.

10. Just because you are a song writer does not mean you are a worship leader.

11. Ask the people who attend your church what songs they like to sing and sing those songs.

12. Don’t try to be Joel Houston, Chris Tomlin, or Kim Walker. We already have one of them.  We now need one of you.

Mel Gibson Criticized for New Film About Jews

By
Toni Ridgaway
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communicating with the unchurched

The Religion News Service tells the story this week of Mel Gibson’s new film project and the criticism he’s receiving from the Jewish community. Gibson’s film will feature the life story of Judah Maccabee, called one of the greatest warriors in Jewish history and the inspiration for the celebration of Hanukkah. But despite Gibson’s past box office successes with period films such as The Passion of the Christ and Braveheart, it was an alcohol-induced rant in 2006 where Gibson supposedly said “Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world” that worries Jewish leaders. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League led a charge against Gibson with The Passion, saying Gibson has “no respect or sensitivity” for Jewish history and has no business making a film about an icon in their culture. CNN quoted Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles as saying it was “preposterous” for Gibson to make the film. “Casting him as a director or star of Judah Maccabee is like casting Bernie Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Hier said.

Gibson himself explained his interest in the film to the Hollywood Reporter, saying he first read the story as a teen and sees “inherently cinematic” aspects to it. And Rabbi Irwin Kula of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York spent time with Gibson discussing the project and has decided that “Gibson has the incredible opportunity to tell the Hanukkah story to half a billion people…He wants to do this with real truthfulness to historical fact. He’s talking to Jewish academics and reading Jewish literature on this, so he’s telling it from inside the Jewish narrative.” Kula even added, “Many Jews who are criticizing him now will look at the movie and feel pride.”

 

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