Reformed, How I Love To Proclaim It

Ray Ortland has a pastoral word of exhortation for folks like me who are theologically (and happily) Reformed:

I believe in the sovereignty of God, the Five Points of Calvinism, the Solas of the Reformation, I believe that grace precedes faith in regeneration. Theologically, I am Reformed. Sociologically, I am simply a Christian – or at least I want to be. The tricky thing about our hearts is that they can turn even a good thing into an engine of oppression. It happens when our theological distinctives make us aloof from other Christians. That’s when, functionally, we relocate ourselves outside the gospel and inside Galatianism...

Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us.

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

Ortland's got me thinking. There are all kinds of other good doctrines and practices that I use to elevate myself above and alienate myself from other genuine believers, if not externally, at least in my heart: the practice of spiritual disciplines (especially the ones I practice); philosophy of ministry (Is your church attractional or missional? I have my doubts about those who aren't like me.); size of church ("I'm not into 'big church' anymore" has come out of my mouth too many times); translation of the Bible (You use what?!); style of worship music...and the list goes on.

I'm reminded of that great hymn "Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It!" While the distinctive beliefs and practices that I listed above are legitimate for me to have, I must be careful not to love to proclaim my love for them above the Gospel. Think of how odd it would sound to sing...

Reformed, how I love to proclaim it
Reformed by the blood of the Lamb
Reformed by His infinite mercy
Cal-vi-nist forever I am!

[second verse...sounds even worse]
Mis-sio-nal and so happy in Keller
No language my rapture can tell
I know that the right way to do church
With me doth continually dwell

Too often my heart and life are singing "Reformed, how I love to proclaim it!" or "Missional, how I love to proclaim it!" or "House Church, how I love to proclaim it!" Again, these are good values to have and hold out to others, but if I allow my passion for those things to separate me from brothers and sisters who are truly redeemed and love to proclaim it, then I'm guilty of Galatianism. I need to hear Paul say, "For in Christ Jesus, neither [reformed, missional, house-church, etc.] nor [non-reformed, attractional, big-church, etc.] counts for anything, but only a new creation in whom faith expresses itself through love" (see Galatians 5:6, 6:15).

I want the joy and song of my heart to be about the Father redeeming me by the blood of the Lamb so that "His child and forever I am." But, sadly there are still other counterfeit joys fighting to be my song.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

[HT: Justin Taylor; also read all of Ray Ortland's "Truly Reformed" here.]

Facebook and the Image of God

Ever wonder about the appeal of Facebook and other web-based social networks? Why would millions of people all over the world want to plaster their names and faces, their likes and dislikes, and their current physical, emotional, or spiritual status all over the worldwide web? I confess I am one of them. I started my own Facebook "profile" and began collecting "friends" several years ago when I realized it was the best way to keep up with the college students to whom I was pastor. But in recent months, I've begun to reconnect with people that I haven't seen or talked to in twenty years. Friends from high school and college, folks in their forties like me, have begun to discover Facebook as a way to get in touch with old friends and stay in touch with current ones.

There are plenty of pundits who are wary of this trend, claiming that this is another symptom of the narcissism this generation has apparently contracted. I can't disagree entirely with this theory, but I'd like to suggest that the Facebook phenomenon may have as much to do with human design as it does with human depravity.

There's at least one lesson we can learn from the Facebook craze: We all long to know and be known by others. Yes, at their worst these social network sites can be a mild (sometimes not so mild) form of exhibitionism, but when you get right down to it people just want to be known. I want the people in my world to know me, so I post pictures of my family because they are part of me. I list the books I've read because they have shaped me. I share my favorite quotes because they tell others what I value and believe. I update my status so that others know where I am...literally and figuratively. I want to be known. And I'm not alone.

It is also true that at their worst social network sites can encourage and enable virtual voyeurism. Some people spend too much time following the lives of other people. But let's face it, all of us are fascinated with people aren't we? Ever done some "people-watching" while you're waiting for a plane? And why do we tend to collect so many "friends," and what about that good feeling you get when someone invites you to be their Facebook friend? I want to know others, and so do you.

Certainly my desire to know and be known by others can become obsessive and get out of proportion, but I'm curious to know why the desire is there at all.

I believe it's because I was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). God wants to know and be known by others. Self-revealing and other-relating are part of the nature of who God is. In his helpful little book concerning the street-level impact of the doctrine of the Trinity, Experiencing the Trinity, Darrell W. Johnson writes:

'At the center of the universe is a relationship.' That is the most fundamental truth I know. At the center of the universe is a community. It is out of that relationship that you and I were created and redeemed. And it is for that relationship that you and I were created and redeeemed! And it turns out that there is a three-fold-ness to that relationship. It turns out that the community is a Trinity. The center of reality is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...the doctrine of the the Trinity is not the result of philosophical speculation carried out in ivory towers, cut off from real life. It is the result of ordinary believers trying to make sense of the facts of God's self-revelation--and trying to live in the light of those facts (pp. 37, 39).

Johnson goes on to talk about one of the "everyday consequences" of the doctrine of the Trinity:

First, we know why when relationships go sour, all of life goes sour. We were created in the image and likeness of God...There are many dimensions of God's character we were created to reflect. But chief among them is this 'us-ness' of God. God does not exist alone; and neither do we who are created in God's image. Thus God says of Adam in the garden, 'it is not good for the man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18). Why? Because Adam will be lonely, yes. But more importantly because 'Adam alone' is not Adam in the image of God. God is not a solitary God. Adam does not reflect who God is until Adam shares life with Eve...It is because we are created in the image of the Trinity that loneliness is so crushing, that broken relationships are so debilitating, that death is so painful. Lack of loss of relationship violates our essential nature, created to reflect the relational essence of God (pp. 52-53).

Our longing to know others and be known by them is part of our human design that has been twisted by our human depravity. Our involvement in the Facebook community is a reflection of our design for community, but when Facebook becomes a source of knowing and being known that takes precedence over community with the Trinity and unity with His Church (John 17) , then our Facebook-ing is more a reflection of our depravity.

One last thought: God has His own Facebook profile. If you want, you can go there and see the ways in which God has made Himself known to us and through which we are able to know Him as our friend: through Creation (Psalm 19:1-6, Romans 1:19-20), through the Bible (Psalm 19:7-11, 2 Peter 1:16-21), and most clearly and intimately through Jesus Christ's person (Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6) and people (John 17:20-23, 1 John 4:11-12).

We desire to know and be known because He first desired to know and be known.

When The Church Is Really Parachurch

I have a good friend who thinks that what we typically refer to as our "church" is really just a parachurch organization. I tend to agree with him. Here's what he means:

Generally speaking, what we refer to as "the church" is an organization with a paid and volunteer leadership who develop and direct programs in which the members of the organization participate in a particular place or building. (Notice that this definition includes churches of all sizes, from the small, rural church with one bi-vocational pastor to the urban or suburban mega-church with a staff of hundreds.) But biblically speaking, the church is the body of Christ, the people, the organism that lives and moves and has its being within the structure provided by the organization.

Think about it. What do you and I call the place to which we travel for worship on Sundays? Have you ever said something like, "Our church is having VBS this week" or "When is the church going to replace those old choir robes with new ones?" or "Have you been tithing to the church?" or "There sure are a lot of churches in this part of town." True, we could be referring to the group of people who are members of our local body, but it seems all too easy to slip into the mindset that the organization is the church and not the people.

If the people of the church (the organism) are really the church, then the organization of the church as I have defined it is really a parachurch organization. Para- means "alongside" and parachurch is a term that has been given to groups and organizations who "come alongside" the church to aid her in her mission. We typically think of groups like Young Life, Chirstian schools and seminaries, and mission boards as parachurch organizations because they do not claim to be churches, but rather servants of local churches and of the Church at large.

So then, the organization with a paid and volunteer leadership who develop and direct programs in which the members of the organization participate in a particular place or building is really a parachurch organization. The structure that has developed in order to organize the life and activity of the organism is meant to come alongside the people to equip and encourage them to be the church. When we rightly define the people as the church, then it becomes clear that the organization that we commonly call "the church" is really parachurch.

This is an important disctinction to make because as I just mentioned, the purpose of the church organization is to serve the organism. However, all too often we pastors and church leaders treat the organism (the people) as if they exist to serve the organization (leaders and programs).

Why do we feel the need to pressure people to give or give more? Because if they don't give, the organization will not survive and our staff, missionaries, and bills won't get paid. Why do we so easily become numbers-centered and spend so much time and energy figuring out ways to get more people in the pews? Because if they don't come our programs won't run, our paid and volunteer staff will have nothing to do, and people will go to other "churches" whose programs "meet their needs." When the organization begins to depend on the organism to prop up or perpetuate itself, the church (the body, the organism) is in danger of being devoured. What might have begun as a church organism being served by its church organization quickly and subtly becomes a group of people who exist to serve the organization.

I'll give two examples of this organization-devouring-the-organism phenomenon: one broad-brushed and one in which I am the guilty party.

• When church growth experts tell us that we must build and maintain "excellent" programs for youth and children because that will attract and keep their parents, I believe we are in danger of sacrificing our children on the altar of church growth. We're using children to get something we really want...their parents in our pews. That's the organism serving the organization.

• A personal example: When I was a Middle School Youth Pastor in a large suburban church, I asked a certain couple to join our volunteer team of leaders in the middle school ministry. I wanted them on board because of their love for Jesus and for people. They said no, and in so many words explained that if they joined our team of volunteers they wouldn't have time to lead the weekly Bible study that they had at their home with friends of their middle school son. Yikes! It hit me hard. I was asking them to give up THEIR ministry to teenagers in their own sphere of influence so that they could serve in MY ministry to teenagers. I was asking the organism to serve the organization. What I should have done was ask them how I could help equip and resource them for the ministry that God had given them in their own neighborhood.

I have much to learn and unlearn. These thoughts are in process, not completely settled. I am not saying that the organization is bad or unnecessary, indeed it is necessary and good, but I'll save that thought for another post. However, I am more and more convinced that Jesus has called the organization to serve the organism and that I have spent most of the last 20 years operating the other way. The question becomes: how can the organization of our churches do a better job of coming alongside our people to equip them to do the work of their ministry? Are we willing to sacrifice the perpetuation of our organization in order to better serve the people, the church for whom Jesus sacrificed Himself?

What are your thoughts?

The Church's Greatest Evangelism Tool Is The Church

Wisdom from the preaching of Sinclair Ferguson:

I remember cringing a few years ago when the Mel Gibson Passion movie came out, and I noticed a number of ministers...making foolish pronouncements like 'This is the greatest evangelistic tool there has ever been in the entire history of the church.' When anyone uses that type of language you can be pretty certain that they know almost nothing about the history of the church.

What about the church? Doesn't Jesus teach us here [John 17:20-23] that His single greatest evangelistic agency is the church? And notice--I think this is significant--not the church simply as a random collection of individuals who have been converted, but the church as a new, counter-cultural community in which the fellowship of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit comes to expression in the unity, and community, and joy, and sense of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ among His people.

That's the reason, you know, in the New Testament there's hardly any instruction whatsoever about how to be a witness. And by contrast, in our evangelism manuals all the emphasis lies on 'How can you as an individual be a witness?' and 'Here are the questions you need to learn to ask.' Now what's that a sign of? That's a sign of the bankruptcy of the church, because when the church is full of the power of the Holy Spirit what happens is what Simon Peter describes in 1 Peter, chapter 3--that you're in a situation that you need to be ready to give an answer for the hope that's in you.

When the church fails to be the church, individual Christians need to learn how to ask questions that will make ungodly people think about godly things. But when the church is the church, the people of God simply need to answer the questions that the very character of the church is prompting the world to ask.

And that's what we desperately need. That is perhaps the single greatest need we have as a community of God's people. That there might be something about the very atmosphere of our fellowship together in the unity of the bonds of the Holy Spirit that makes people ask the question 'Where on earth, or in heaven, did that come from?' And if they're not compelled to ask that question about our church, it's an almost certain sign that there's very little that's heavenly about our community...

Now, I'm a middle-aged man, and so I am less cautious than I once was in saying what I'm about to say. Our churches have the key of making an extraordinary impact upon our society in our pockets, if we will just take that key out. What is it? Be the church.

--from a sermon on John 17 titled "The Church and Christ's Burden" given by Sinclair Ferguson at the EPC General Assembly on Thursday evening, June 19th, 2008.

One Another-ing

Over on the Riverside website I've begun a series of articles examining the "one another" passages of the New Testament. The series is intended to explore what it means for the church to practice biblical community by devoting itself to "the fellowship" (Acts 2:42).

Here are the first two installments:

Part One: Love One Another: John 13:34-35

Part Two: Consider One Another: Hebrews 10:24