A Radical Invitation

Has the first word of the biblical salvation message has been lost through disuse? Given the climate and message of today's evangelical church, one has to wonder. Jesus preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The Apostles preached, "Repent!" Even when just counseling the woman caught in adultery Jesus said, "Go and sin no more." Let me ask you, is that the kind of thing you preach?

Where is the "REPENT!" in today's preaching? It just isn't part of the evangelical fabric that's in fashion these days. Have we become so afraid that people will not respond to that nasty little word that we have abandoned it and now depend on manipulation and marketing instead? When we rely on such measly human efforts that utilize enticement and stroke the flesh, what sacrifice is any respondent prepared to make?

The discipleship crisis the American church is in today starts with the message that initially enlists today's supposed disciples. Folks that enter thinking they don't have to turn, won't turn after they enter. I'm not a fan of fire and brimstone preaching--faith, not fear, is the only motivation that sustains a life of following Jesus--but to become a Christian a person must embrace their own death and trust Christ to raise them to a new (and better) life. People today, though all-modern-and-educated, must  still hear and respond to the call to repent and follow Jesus, as any disciple in any former age did.

Christianity is about a radical change in direction, a night and day difference in one's life. The result of a new birth cannot be the same old, same old, for birth means leaving an old way of life for a new one, or it's not birth at all. For those would who style themselves as radical and innovative preachers in this day and age, the message that actually matches that characterization starts with the word REPENT! Now that's a radical invitation that stands a shot at producing new life.

A Letter to the Vision-Driven Church, Part I

‘I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate...       Revelation 2:19-20a  NASB

In his message to the church at Thyatira, Jesus pinpoints trouble in a church that seemed to know where it was going. Look at his description: notable deeds, love and faith, service, perseverance, and a trajectory in mission that resulted in latter deeds being greater than former ones. I think any of us looking at that description would say, "What a great church, now that's the way to do it!." Particularly, in today's business and marketing laden approach to church planting, church management and growth, those qualities would seem to be the core of producing the right kind of success.

Now please don't misunderstand what I'm saying, those were great characteristics. This church was relational, it was engaged and moving, they were focused. They knew what they were trying to accomplish, and they were getting after it. But as important as these considerations are, what cannot be overlooked is that they were not allowed by Christ to be substituted for proper teaching and upright behavior.

The message to Thyatira that perhaps today's church needs to clearly hear is that passe things like doctrine and discipline really do matter, at least to God. I fear that under the current church-growth regimens so widely practiced by congregations swallowing up whole the population of church-goers, discipline never rises past the level of showing the door to anyone who doesn't quite buy the leader's vision. Doctrine isn't anything more than the joyous knowledge that as long as you fit the profile the church is trying to attract and submit to that leader's vision, God loves you.

It is not enough to have a vision that drives your church. It is not enough to know one's mission and to dedicatedly pursue it. Even if one is successful in that aspect of church life, Christ may find significant and disastrous fault with such a church. Church discipline is a key aspect of church life as Christ would have it. False prophets, false teaching, immoral practices all have to be addressed via discipline. Talk about turning today's wisdom on its head--vision, evidently, is not a suitable vector for close-mindedness in church according to Christ, but doctrine is.

A Letter to the Struggling Church, Part II

In his letter to the Angel of the church in Smyrna within the Apocalypse, the Lord Jesus Christ comforts a body of believers that are getting it handed to them on three fronts. They are suffering tribulation and poverty, they are suffering human opposition and persecution, and they are being acted against by the Devil himself. Rather than any of those conditions being used as evidence that the church needed correction, rebuke, or instructions about getting it right, Christ speaks empathetically concerning them with encouragement. A similar observation could be made in the case of the church in Philadelphia.

Apparently being a suffering, struggling church was not a mark of disfavor or disobedience.

Jesus' approach strikes a discordant note with much of what is offered as appropriate church evaluation today. Now, when finance, influence and size of constituency mean so much, churches are measured on the scales of name recognition, market infiltration, traffic through the door, and cash flow. Is it possible that we are judging church differently critically than does Christ? We would have no trouble saying no if this modern approach actually made disciples, but then, has anyone ever had a felt need for repentance!

The church in Smyrna was experiencing tribulation--the situation of being between a rock and a hard place without viable alternatives. They were in poverty as well. The combination of being without and having no way out is very distressing indeed. Perhaps we hope that such a condition would never be visited upon faithful Christians, but that is exactly the condition these faithful Christians were in. Christ was fully aware of it, and yet he neither rebuked them for being in it nor promised them that he would alter it.

The church in Smyrna was subjected to blasphemy from those who said they were Jews but were not. It seems to me that this blasphemy would have been twofold: folk were reviling Christ, and they were reviling those in Christ. I don't like being subjected to abusive language, and it makes me cringe when I hear some one so much as using the Lord's name in vain, so it is evident to me that more than sticks and stones can cause injury. That the source was Jews not believing in their own messiah puts me in mind of the some of the rot that comes out of Sam Harris or Sigmund Freud.

The church in Smyrna was about to be attacked by the Devil himself. Whether or not the Devil was going to use physical prison or spiritual prison is hard to tell. Christians have been thrown in jail at times, that much has precedent in history--was it the Devil? Maybe. Could the Devil spiritually hem Christians in and set "guards" on them? I think so. Regardless, Jesus' counsel was to not fear what was about to be suffered. That may be easier said than done, but it is the necessity of faith, even today.

There is much speculation about the nature of the 10 days tribulation. The suggestion that it refers to Polycarp and a long since elapsed historical period is much bantied about. Even though periods of time throughout the Apocalypse tend to be literal (according to my interpretation), the seven churches are representative and symbolic. Therefore, all that this needs to be understood as communicating is that at some point, churches like that in Smyrna are bound to experience momentary, intense periods (ten days) of oppression instigated by the Devil.

What does a suffering church need to know? Well, beyond not interpreting their suffering as the disfavor of Christ or the misapplication of methodology, the suffering, struggling church must recognize that enduring suffering is part of being faithful to Christ. There is a crown of life awaiting for those who do endure, so be faithful unto death. Those who overcome will be eternally blessed.

Part I

A Letter to the Struggling Church, Part I

We live in an age where success in the church is expected and applauded and flocked to in just about the same way it is in any endeavor attempted by man. It is less an American phenomenon than it is a global one, as large, successful churches dominate the scenery in places like Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, Accra, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, and Rio de Janeiro (not that there are not other places which could be listed).

Often the thought is that those churches which reach this lofty status must be doing things right, whereas less successful churches, even struggling churches cannot be. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with church success, great growth or megachurch status--the very first church in Jerusalem had all those characteristics, but there is also nothing inherently wrong about being a struggling church. At least that would seem to be true from Christ's perspective, at least as far as we can tell from his letters to the churches in the Apocalypse.

A church could be doing exactly what Christ would have them do and still not appear to be successful. Truth be told, there are not necessarily great harvests in every place the gospel is preached. All any believer and any group of believers can do is what they are bidden to do by God--the results are really up to him. Persecution is not in itself a hindrance to church growth, nor is entrenched false religion, for even the Devil can't keep folk blinded forever, but in some places, there is an abundance of good soil; and in some places, not so much.

A church could be doing exactly what Christ would have them do and still not appear "blessed". Financial straits, community disapproval (even animosity), a lack of maneuvering room or perplexity about what to do, and even a lack of ability (power) are not necessarily signs that a church lacks anything that God intended for it. A church could be experiencing all this, in the absolute awareness of Christ, and neither be reprimanded for it nor promised a better day without it. Apparently, in some churches God intends things to go swimmingly, and in some others, not so much.

Christ may not expect the struggling church to stop struggling, but the one thing he does command of it is that, regardless, it remain faithful to the end.

Part II

Without a People the Vision Perishes

I've grown weary of the word, "vision," I'm almost afraid to use it. Generally, if we hear it from a pulpit, it's usually just the preface to a building campaign or some gradiose ministry scheme that usually has some other name than Christ's attached to it. OK, maybe I'm a touch jaded and callous, but I have to tell you, I've grown tired of the institutional, the organizational, and the impositional in the name of God Almighty.

Nonetheless, Christians need a vision, for life without hope is the soil of bitterness, nothing good grows in it. We don't need a Pied Piper, maybe not even John Piper, but we do need to see Christ in us, the hope of glory. We need a vision birthed in the dark of a tomb but risen to the glory of the throne of God. Not a vision of something of this world that will burn with this world: not something that within a generation or two will operate on principles the opposite of those it was started with just in order to keep it going. We do need a vision bigger than ourselves, but we have to see it in ourselves. It's Christ in us.

Jesus never built a hospital, an orphanage, a school, or an auditorium that would put Broadway to shame. He scarcely had a following when it was all said and done. Did it bother him? He was the only person ever to live for whom being full of himself was a good thing. I'd like to be full of him too. These last couple of years have been difficult and dark ones for me, vision killing years--maybe for you too. There is a hope rising though, finally, and it doesn't include a building, it won't make a splash, it doesn't even need a people! It does, however, need a Person.

Is Yours the Gospel of the Born Again?

Technically, we could define gospel as the good news about Christ. Generally, that is what we focus upon as Evangelicals-- why not? Good News is in our name. I have begun to wonder if in doing so we have actually stripped the gospel of its power. We take it as a story, that if believed, results in a change of one's status before God from lost to found. We have pressed this line of theology hard since WWII, and it seems to me, we need to consider whether or not the fractured, frayed, weak condition of the Evangelical church is the result.

A noted internal study at Willow Creek a couple of years ago framed the issue quite well, for more than their own congregation, I think. Church-going Evangelicals look more and more indistinguishable from unchurced Harry and Mary everyday. Our approach to gospel isn't producing change in hearers lives. We have had, in fact, a fruitless season of harvest. I think we have entirely lost track of a simple verity: Jesus said we must be born again.

So then, what does it mean to be born again? Is it a Toyota moment? Not too many evangelicals would like the feeling of that! Is it just an idiomatic expression which refers to believing the story. If one believes, then our Cartesian soteriology assumes rebirth-- I believe, therefore I'm born again. We might not say it that way in our theological tomes, but I think that may be the practical reality of our approach to gospel. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind, nor is it the picture the NT paints of the born again.

It seems to me that the born again should know they're born again, and that it should not be that hard for even the non-born again to perceive it. After all, there are effects on the mind and heart; there is an awakening of an intimate perception of the Father and the Son; there is the experience of change, akin to going from dry to wet when one jumps in a lake (not a very evangelistic image, I understand). Jesus spoke of such in crystal clear terms in regard to Zaccheus, though wee man that he was.

It's hard for the promoters of that story, such as myself, to resign ourselves to waiting upon the Lord to do that secret Spiritual thing in the soul of people that truly makes them born again. We want to know right now whether or not the hearers of that story buy the story, and we want those folk to respond right now to the telling of it. The result has been an at first slow, but now precipitating decay into methodology that delivers assent to the story while downplaying the true nature of being born again. Is it any wonder the church looks so much like the world around her?

Speak Up

I have nothing against preaching, I make my living doing so, but I think it is completely against the scripture to have church meetings so slavishly revolve around preaching as they have since the Reformation. It is not unusual for clergy to compose the prayers to be petitioned and to select readings to be read and the music to be performed based upon what they are preaching. Even advertising and promotional materials branding preaching are developed today by those who want to make it big. If things go right, one's preaching material becomes the basis of lucrative book deals and busy schedules of conference engagements. Everything revolves around preaching and preachers are stars of the show.

Don't get me wrong, preaching remains, and always will remain important as a means of communicating the gospel, but is it meant to be the bulk of our congregational meetings? Preaching has become the coach of our services, everything else, and everyone else other than the preacher, is just the fringe on top. Does the Holy Spirit inspire none other than the preacher? My reading of the church meeting manual in the Bible (1 Corinthians 14) says no! It seems to me, input from sources other than the preacher are just as important as anything the preacher might have to say. I would wager that most of our preachers are reasonably good speakers, and our approach to the meeting of the congregation is certainly ordered, but the question that remains is by whom and for whom? We most definitely are not following the pattern communicated in the Spirit breathed scripture!

When I read 1 Corinthians 14, the most important word I see is everyone. Too often what I have seen in church, however, is no one (except the preacher, that is). We need to revisit what we do when the church is together. We're too fascinated, or entertained, or too fearful, or lazy to let anyone other than the star, the emcee, the preacher express his or her anointing. That is not the will of God, and it suppresses what he wants to bring out in the body. But nothing will or can change until the body, not only in correction but also in participation, learns to speak up.

The Audience of Worship

Who is the intended audience of the "worship" segments of congregational meetings?

If the answer is the visitor or newcomer, those segments are designed, like everything else in such churches, to appeal to the next one in the door. That one must be prospected, projected and then specifically, strategically prepared for and enticed. It's a marketing thing, often a niche marketing thing, but is it a worship thing?

If the answer is the folk sitting in the congregation, those segments are designed, often very responsively, to retain those returning through the door. The wants, wishes, even grumbling, of those will guide, forestall or derail any attempt to change the status quo. It's an appeasing, people-pleasing thing, but is it a worship thing?

If the answer is people, regardless of the considerations above, the goal of those fronting "worship" time will be to thrill, or at least to satisfy, the cash paying audience in the seats. The likelihood is that those leaders will be inordinately attended to by both the audience and the church "promoters" who enlist them, everyone together "stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song." It's a pop concert or stage show thing, but is it worship?

An innocent misstep a sincere worship leader can make is tugboating-- attempting to lead the folk into the port of "presence." However, playing David to the congregation's Saul is not a New Testament paradigm. The folk in the seats are not faithless fakes who have no God inside them and so have to be pushed from without. They are a living temple, a habitation of the Holy Spirit. The worship team doesn't have to "take them into the throne room," they're already there! 

The issue in corporate worship is the congregation's recognition and acknowledgement of God with them, in them, and their appropriate response to him. With all of this in mind, then, who is the audience of worship?

None other than God himself, and God and no one else. When someone says, "worship was great today!" he or she is utterly deluded if they had the worship team's performance in mind. However, if they had the congregation's participation and God's manifest presence in mind, they'd be keenly insightful. When worship is truly worship, the church is the orchestra, the Spirit is the maestro, and God is the audience.

Worship: Arson or Spontaneous Combustion

Worship.

The source of conflict in the modern church disproportional to the amount inspired by the Holy Spirit about it in the New Testament.

Among the more charismatic of us, it can take on a mystical, superstitious, or even shamanistic flavor if it's seen as the means of conjuring up the presence of God. Among the less charismatic, it is just part of the package of techniques employed to appeal to this generation of potential pew sitters. In way too many churches it is nothing more than a crowd-warming preliminary to the supposedly more important art of the preacher. In the more liturgical among us it has no separate identity at all, everything that happens is part of the "worship service."

What do we actually know from scripture about the practice of worship in the church? We know Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn after the Lord's supper. We know that songs in tongues and in understood languages were part of the corporate worship at Corinth and, presumably, elsewhere. We know worship was participative, consisting of individual and corporate expression simultaneously. 

And... [insert drum roll] we know that there was no recognized gift of worship leading. We do have that wonderful instance where the curtain to the heavenlies is pulled back to reveal that loud, boisterous worship is part of the milieu of the throne room of God. Beyond all this, we really know very little, but that's not nothing. Truth be told, our practices of contemporary worship are more informed by the Old Testament and our present culture than they are by the New Testament.

Just for the sake of clarity, let me propose a definition of worship:

Worship is those acts, both inward and outward, that focus attention specifically on God and thereby distill within the soul an awareness of his presence and that arouse reverence and adoration toward him and elicit surrender to him.

If we combine that definition with the New Testament understanding of what it means to be born again, it seems to me that worship teams (bands, leaders, choirs, combos, or whatever) should never be considered the sources, igniters or elicitors of worship. We already bear the presence of God within us, so why would we need to be "inspired" to experience it? If someone requires such an inspiration, it would raise questions regarding whether or not they were truly born again!

If we are depending on the skill of a worship leader to get us into the "presence of the Lord," worship is not what's happening-- emotional manipulation is.

What happens in worship gatherings today often resembles rock concerts and stage shows more than it does the throne room of God. It is a cheer-led spectacle of star power, a clamor of flesh and self-indulgence. But please, don't take this as a critique on the type or style of music being used. That, really, is inconsequential.

At best, worship leaders are nothing more than accompanists, a utilitarian backdrop to what's happening among the folk, between the folk and God. Therein lies the problem with much of what is supposedly worship today-- is something happening between the folk and God? We can't make people know God, love him, or express true worship to him. It has to come from them because of what God has done in them. Choreographing a Kumbaya moment is for summer camp, not the church of Jesus Christ!

It seems to me, worship ought to be more like spontaneous combustion than arson. Sadly, there's getting to be fewer and fewer who understand the difference.

When Less Is More

What are the three best things anyone can do to aid evangelism?

1) Love (John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:7-8; Hebrews 10:24; 1 John 3:16-20; Galatians 6:10);

2) Demonstrate the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:4-5; Hebrews 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5; Luke 24:46-49)

3) Be ready with your answer (1 Peter 3:15-16; John 9:24-38; Acts 26:1-29; 2 Timothy 1:8a; Luke 9:26).

We don't need to drink liquor with the world in order to win them, or to gyrate and grind with them at dance clubs, or to use vulgar language, or to entertain them, or to be entertained with them in order to have something to talk with them about around the water cooler. Evangelism is not offering the world more of what it already has, but that which is divinely different! Not different just for difference sake, nor different by artifice, but the difference that arises naturally, really supernaturally, when God is in the place.

If people will not heed the invitation to put their trust in Christ and walk with him now, when that invitation is accompanied by the demonstration of love, Holy Spirit power and personal testimony, then they don't need to be in God's company in eternity. Not because they are anymore wicked than any of us, but because they will not surrender to the will of God and the leadership of his Spirit. God alone is good, and if one can't agree with him, he or she needs to burn in hell! 

No one is fit for, nor could they possibly stay in heaven if they're not absolutely surrendered to God's will. Such surrender is the very stuff of faith, hope and love. It's what Jesus demonstrated during his earthly journey. So whatever Christians do in the name of evangelism, that whatever has to resolve in a call to the not yet surrendered to surrender unconditionally to Christ.

A church that accommodates human willfulness for the sake of evangelism, instead of confronting it, provides no service to anyone except Satan. Silencing the call for repentance, or expanding the tent of salvation to enclose sinful human perversity is not evangelism, nor even pre-evangelism. It's just participating in another's sin. If that is actually what it takes to grow the church in post-modern society, then growth is a diminishment which actually makes less more.

Church As Family

The word says that God sets the lonely in families. Families are a mark of his compassion and grace. Of all his inventions for the benefit of humanity, in my my mind, none beats the family. In America, however, we suffer a debilitating disease, which infects the broader West as well-- family has lost it's cachet and is not valued as highly as it once was. We have actually become anti-family in many ways, and our disease is wasting our society.

That situation is not limited to our families of birth but applies to our families of rebirth as well.

There seems to me to be a panic among religious prognosticators in the West concerning the future of Church. They read the tea leaves and blare their trumpets, "if something isn't done soon, we'll lose the next generation!" So, much discussion has ensued about the proper paradigm for the church in our day. What can be done to make the church relevant, resilient, and resurgent in the generations coming of age?

If God never said anything about the subject, our brainstorming might be appropriate, but he has spoken in his Word and we should at least have a clue. No model is offered there for church other than that of family. In any age, in any culture, church is meant to be seen as the family of God. Believers are brothers and sisters in the Lord, we all share one heavenly Father, and are instructed to love each other in a familial manner. If church is an institution, the institution it is has to be is the family.

The paradigm that works to produce the body God desires is the Church As Family. Fan clubs for religious superstars, social service agencies aiming to treat societal ills, social clubs giving members a place to belong, playgrounds, spas, mass entertainment venues, or religious businesses opening branches everywhere possible in an effort to dominate the market are not models taught by Jesus or described by the Word. Even if one found organizational success in adopting these unscriptural modalities, that would not equate to divine endorsement.

To be honest, I don't know why we even think in terms of trying to satisfy some element of population that isn't satisfied with a biblical paradigm. If those not satisfied don't drop their self-indulgent notions and submit to Christ as Lord and the Word as the rule of faith and conduct, do they even belong in the church? Church is the family of God, anyone not an actual brother or sister is merely a visitor. Some accommodation may be made for a visitor, but who turns their ongoing family-life upside down because a visitor drops in?

Some might say, "do it for evangelism," however, most evangelism doesn't occur within the confines of church services. Besides, evangelism is not presenting something other than Christ crucified and risen, nor calling for something less than repentance and faith concerning him. Believing in Christ and yielding to his Lordship is how we become part of the family. The unrepentant, the unyielding, those not surrendered, and the self-serving are not saved whether they're in church or out, accommodating them can only mean not accommodating Christ.  

Christianity isn't a popularity contest and following Christ isn't going to win anyone friends amongst those that don't follow Christ. The truth is what sets people free, and seeing brothers and sisters love one another is what makes the world know we're actually followers of Christ. If we actually want to build on the foundation Paul laid, then church has to be family. Anything else is wood, hay and stubble good for nothing but smoke and flame.

Bring on the Wooden Spoon

It's humid today in Pennsylvania, downright soupy. In fact, the air's so thick, if God was minded to, he could drop a big wooden spoon out of the heavenlies and give everything a good stir. Maybe that's just what we need--a heavenly stirring! A whirling breeze exchanging the stale for the fresh, the energy of air on the move, roiling up the grace of new savors throughout the pot. As much as a change in the weather of wind and air would be nice, a change in the weather of Spirit would be even nicer.

Am I longing for revival? Perhaps, but there are some drawbacks that make me pause. Revivals have occurred frequently throughout the age of the church, so much so, that we can look at their characteristics and make some observations. There are some negatives!

Revivals fade. Generally speaking, they last for for about 3-6 years, and then, in about the same amount of time, whatever spiritual impact they've made on society has vanished, like the Titanic on the northern Atlantic. It might have been a big deal while it was afloat, but there wasn't even an oil slick marking it's passing shortly thereafter.

Revivals spoil the taste of their participants. Like candy does before a meal, revival makes everything else, even of substance, seem tasteless. The intensity and excitement of the revival experience hooks the desire of the participant like heroin does the addict. Afterwards ennui sets in, and the one revived becomes bored with, even critical of, the taste of life in the interregnum between revivals.

Revivals infect people with a self-centered spirituality. Participants become like kids in an amusement park. They bounce from one thing to the next looking for a bigger thrill. Experiences are compared on the basis of the thrill delivered. Preachers transform into carnival barkers, cheerleading about the rush to be felt at their meetings. Some turn into reverse-engineers trying to replicate and improve the thrill gotten at another venue. Spirituality riding on a roller coaster!

Revival displaces Jesus as the object of one's affections. Idolatry pure and simple: some of the "revived" relish revival more than they do friendship with Jesus! Their eyes on not fixed on the author and perfecter, but on the next possibility of revival.

Then, I look up from this soup, flicking my hands in frustration, spattering the world around me with sweat and tears, and realize just how badly we need a stirring. Our biggest thrill should be knowing the King of Glory personally, as a friend, rather than the gifts he lavishes on us, but we're thrilled with little if anything at all. Something's gotta change!

We could use some renewing:
A new start of obedience;
A fresh dedication to sharpening one another;
A new sensitivity to the Holy Spirit;
A new enthusiasm for knowing Christ personally;
A new hunger for making Him known to others.

All things being equal, I guess my hope is that God would bring out the big wooden spoon and stir up a revival.

Christianity Is Selling Death

I've grown tired of both the church shoppers and the church marketers of our day. When I hear someone ask, "What does your church have to offer me or my family?" it's about all I can do to not have my head explode. It's not like it's anything new, Jesus had to put up with the same kind of self-centeredness, but that doesn't make it easier to take. Church is not a supermarket.

What consumer benefits a church might offer has nothing at all to do with whether or not it is the place God desires a believer to be in order to grow and serve. God has a divine appointment for each of us, and finding it should be our goal. Then, with patience and grace, serving God and our brothers and sisters there should be our occupation until (and only if) God appoints us some place else.

We certainly have no right to treat our brothers and sisters as disposable and divorce ourselves from their fellowship because we've decided we can get a better deal somewhere else. God is the one who has made us parts of the body and he alone gets to appoint us to our place in the body. What business does any church leader have, then, of dangling a carrot, trying to coax a believer to make a decision about where they belong on a basis other than God's appointment? 

And evangelism is not soliciting suitors like Tamar enticed Judah. We can't initially camouflage the message of repentance and surrender only to unveil the truth of  obedience and sacrifice later. Can it be any wonder that when it's time to pay the piper, such converts are as a fickle and disloyal as the rest of our hedonistic, consumer-driven society. If we tickle the flesh to get folk in, we'll get nothing but a giggle from them when they're called upon to stand up and be counted for Christ.

The gospel is good news and every biblically legitimate means needs to be employed to get it to everyone, but the often unspoken stark truth about its message is that embracing it means buying into your own death. The old-fashioned notion of fire and brimstone is unpopular these days because it's just not marketable. I don't care for it myself, it doesn't reflect biblical preaching in my mind, but the biblical message isn't any more palatable. The message Jesus preached to potential followers: "deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me."

I'm dumbfounded amidst a church world that doesn't understand it's own message. I mean, really, how can such a thing as church marketing even exist? It's not just oxymoronic, it's plain moronic too! No, it's even worse, it's faithless, and it's ruining the heritage of God. Let the self-centered consumers and ravenous church hawkers beware, you will reap what you sow. 

So, we can build cathedrals of wood, hay and stubble, selling emptiness to the empty-headed and empty-hearted, but if we want to do what Jesus did, then we must come to terms with this: Christianity is actually selling death.

Waking Up from the American Dream

A hotly debated issue these days is the relevance of the church in post-modern society. On one side of that argument, there’s a new movement that purports fitting seamlessly in with the world in the name of evangelism. Folk who believe that perspective cite the Apostle Paul as the foremost promoter of relevance, but clearly, Paul never promoted living worldly lifestyles in the name of evangelism. He merely said, more or less, "when you're eating with a heathen eat what the heathen eats."

I see no liberty to translate that into "watch what they watch," "buy what they buy," "pursue what they pursue," "do what they do." No, we're called to be different than the world. If our lifestyle looks like the unbelievers around us, it’s not a good sign-- it means were in sync with the world and out of sync with God. His ways are not mankind's ways, so Christians need to make His ways their ways rather than the world's! 

If our manner of life and our aspirations look in all practical measures just like the unbelieving world around us, why would any of them buy into the gospel we promote? In that case, they already live exactly the same way that we do but without the hassle of religion. What point would there be in adding religious trappings that don't actually make a difference to their lifestyle? The long and short of it: Christians ought to stand out from the world even while they're living in it--different values, different activities, different dreams. 

The difference is what, in fact, makes evangelism attractive to the world. The hope we have must strike a different chord than the hope they have or they won't be puzzled enough by ours to ask us about it. They won't find our dream intriguing in the least. If we're serious about bringing people to a life-saving, life-transforming faith in Christ, we're going to have to wake up from the American dream and start living God’s.