Lost and Found is the first book by Ed Stetzer that I’ve read. I’m a big fan of Ed’s work, both for Lifeway and as a leading missiologist. He is (was?) on the board of the Acts 29 Network and has spoken at many of their events. I was pretty excited to read this book based on all of that.

I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Much of the book was data about what the younger unchurched like and don’t like and the case studies of churches who are “reaching the lost” were nothing new, at least for me. This, like Young, Restless, and Reformed, are good books to bring people up-to-speed, but for people who are already reading lots about being “missional”, this book may not be very helpful.

Quotes

Establishing Depth in churches (p 103)

• Teach the entire Bible, even the difficult setions.
• Foster discussion in Bible study and teaching.
• Addres tough topics and answer difficult questions.
• Do not be afraid to say, “I don’t know!”
• Empower everyone to look for answers.
• Place a priority on Scripture memorization.
• Distrubite the responsibility of spiritual growth to both leaders and learners.
• Provide opportunities to learn about worldview and other religions.
• Make apologetics a priority.
• Provide exegetical Bible teaching.
• Sing theologically sound music.
• Promote life application to Scripture.
• Establish climates of honesty and openness.
• Provide multipel Bible Study options per week.
• Encourage examination.
• Pray.

However, our opportunity as Christ followers goes far beyond any physical acts or humanitarian relief. We have something that not only addresses physical needs, but it addresses our spiritual and emotional needs as well. We have the writte, spoken, andliving gospel. Jesus Christ is the hope of the world! This is something we cannot lost sight of in our efforts regarding social responsibility. If it were not for His atoning work on the cross, this world would be empty and void of what so many are despareately seeking. Put simply, concepts of grace and mercy would be obsolete if it were not for our Savior who originally modeled them. (p 114)

Jesus made an impact while He was on earth, and others followed Him to do the same. He led a movement to change lives and change the world. And this One, the only One who is fully God and fully man, did it by leading with transparency.

In part, transparency has to do with being open and honest, but it is more than that. It involves being open and honest with a purpose – a purpose that is redemptive and developmental, a purpose that allows the light to shine through who you really are so that others are impacted in positive ways. (p 210)

I received a copy of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists at the Magnifying God converence at University Reformed Church in East Lansing. The book is a very easy read and an enjoyable one. I knew many of the stories from reading blogs, but it was still an entertaining read. 

Quotes

Humanly speaking, God’s sovereignty seems to threaten human responsibility. But Scripture affirms both truths. Even when we don’t understand, we can thank God that he does not limit himself according to our understanding. God gives Christians all the motivation they need to share their faith. We evangelize for God and his glory, out of love for our neighbors. We have confidence because there is no greater evangelist than the Holy Spirit (page 88)

At its best, Calvinish makes a differnece. Transcendence doesn’t just give Christians an excuse to sing songs that mention “glory” in ever other verse. The transcendent God inspires fear and trembling. He demands holiness, but not without offering his Son as a sacrifice for our sings and sending his Holy Spirit to comfort us. Scripture refuses to condone any response but humility. 

As it did for the apostle Paul, humility should engender action. God goes before us. What greater comfort in evangelism could there be, what greater hope for social justice?

As we look for a new church, one important aspect is finding community outside of the Sunday service. It’s important, though, that we be Gospel-centered, and not community centered, according to this article from Jonathan Dodson.

Does your church, your community, your small group, your missional community gather in anticipation of being reminded of the gospel, corrected in the gospel, motivated by the gospel, to sing of the gospel? If not, what can you do to reshape community expectations around the gospel, not community? Have you become too mature for community or too community centered for the gospel? Consider how to make the gospel central and community will follow.

From Tony Jones, 

“I have come to reject the notion of Original Sin. I consider it neither biblically, philosophically, nor scientifically tenable.

How someone can read the Bible as God’s revealed word and look at society today and think that we are not born with a sin nature is beyond me

From C. J. Mahaney‘s interview with Ligon Duncan

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

“I have not come to be served, but to serve.” And “if you want to be a servant, you have to be prepared to be treated like one.” (Glen Knecht)

Wow, that’s challenging. Am I really willing to be treated like a servant? Too often, I think the answer, wrongfully, is no.

From Tim Chester

Three things are key to effective evangelism: loving Jesus, loving people and living life.

In a recent post I looked at loving Jesus and in a future post I’ll look at the importance of loving loving life.Today, loving people …Some people love the idea of ministry. They like the idea of being a minister or missionary. But they don’t really love people. They don’t make good evangelists!

Step one in evangelism is being passionate about Jesus.

Step two is being passionate about people. Not just seeing them as evangelistic fodder or targets for gospel salvos. But friends. People to love. Love will care for all their needs – physical, social, emotional. But gospel love also recognises our greatest need – to know God through Christ. And so true love will always want to introduce people to our greatest friend, Jesus.

From Steve Timmis writing at TheResurgence.com. I couldn’t agree with this post more, and one of the elements we’re looking for in a new church is a culture of discipleship and training, where the church understands its primary role in the raising up and training of new leaders.

I know saying this isn’t going to win me any friends, but someone has to tell the king he’s naked. Is it not a quiet madness for churches to largely outsource their discipleship (to parachurch agencies) and training (to theological colleges)? The best context for both discipleship and training is the people of God on mission (a.k.a. church).

Parachurch vs. Local Church

Take discipleship as a case in point. It’s in the context of church that we are going to learn best what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Parachurch agencies do a lot of good, but they tend to draw people who share a special interest and who want similar things. By contrast, a local church is usually comprised of people from a range of backgrounds, at very different stages of development and with competing interests.

It’s a fact of life that it’s far harder to get on with people like that than it is with people who have more in common. But those are precisely the people I need to make me more like Jesus. It is precisely when the church is a ragbag collection of people who aren’t like each other that “great grace” is essential, and that grace is what turns converts into disciples.

The primary context for training should also be the church in situ. I find it strange that this assertion should be so contentious when the weight of the biblical evidence is behind it. Timothy was trained in gospel ministry as he went about doing gospel ministry. Paul took him under his wing, mentored and tutored him, sent him off into various situations, and talked him through whatever problems he had to deal with. The task of training is equipping people to be better gospel ministers, and an apprenticeship model in situ is the vehicle best suited for that task.

From Owen Strachen, Managing Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at TEDS  

We should work hard when we receive a lower grade than we wanted to not gripe about it to friends. This is not mature, and it’s fundamentally prideful. It’s snarky, and ungodly, and it demeans our instructors. If absolutely necessary, we should ask the professor or teacher if we can talk over the grade. Otherwise, though, we should work to detach our identity from our grades. This is hard, but necessary, to do, and it will kill much pride in the process.

Furthermore, we need to dynamite this ridiculous notion that we, possessed with luminous, blinding brilliance deserve an A or even a B. Many of us don’t. For hard professors, very few students should expect to earn high grades. Would that we had more hard, demanding, excellent professors who taught us well and who didn’t cheat us out of a satisfying educational experience by rewarding laxity, whining, and wimpy classroom behavior.

Parents of children, accordingly, need to work very hard not to find pride in the academic performance of their children. Making this mistake will teach their children that results matter most and that effort need only be mediocre to warrant high achievement.

A Christ-centered approach to education, in sum, seems to be an approach that, above all else, prizes Christ, not grades. We don’t need high marks; we need our holy master, and far, far less of our whining, weak, proud, tremulous, man-centered natural hearts

Helpful post from Doug Wolter, Pastor of Christian Education at LaGrange Baptist Church in LaGrange, Kentucky

Mark Driscoll gives a realistic approach to doing family devotions at dinnertime:

1. Eat dinner with your entire family regularly.
2. Mom and Dad sit next to one another to lead the family discussion.
3. Open the meal by asking if there is anyone or anything to pray for.
4. Someone opens in prayer and covers any requests. This task should be rotated among family members so that different people take turns learning to pray aloud.
5. Start eating and discuss how everyone’s day went.
6. Have a Bible in front of the parents in a translation that is age-appropriate for the kids’ reading level. Have someone (parent or child) open the Bible, and assign a portion to read aloud while everyone is eating and listening.
7. Parents should note key words and themes in the passage and explain them to the kids on an age-appropriate level.
8. Ask questions about the passage. You may want to begin with having your children summarize what was read—retelling the story or passage outline. Then, ask the following questions: What does this passage teach us about God? What does it say about us or about how God sees us? What does it teach us about our relationships with others?
9. Let the conversation happen naturally, listen carefully to the kids, let them answer the questions, and fill in whatever they miss or lovingly and gently correct whatever they get wrong so as to help them.
10. If the Scriptures convict you of sin, repent as you need to your family, and share appropriately honest parts of your life story so the kids can see Jesus’ work in your life and your need for him too. This demonstrates gospel humility to them.
11. At the end of dinner, ask the kids if they have any questions for you.
12. If you miss a night, or if conversation gets off track, or if your family occasionally just wants to talk about something else, don’t stress—it’s inevitable.

Adapted from “Family Dinner Bible Studies” by Mark Driscoll in Trial: 8 Witnesses from 1 & 2 Peter, a study guide. (Mars Hill Church, 2009), pages 69-70.

From Russell Moore

It sure helps to love invisible people. That’s why one rattles on and on about “The Family” while neglecting his kids. That’s why another “fights” for “social justice” by “raising consciousness” about “The Poor” while judging his friends on how trendy their clothes are. And that’s why one pontificates on “The Church” while rolling his eyes at the people in his actual congregation.

“The Family” never shows up unexpected for Thanksgiving or criticizes your spouse or spills chocolate milk all over your carpet; only real families can do that. “The Poor” don’t show up drunk for the job interview you’ve scheduled or spend the money you’ve given them on lottery tickets or tell you they hate you; only real poor people can do that. “The Church” never votes down my position in a congregational business meeting or puts on an embarrassingly bad Easter musical or asks me to help clean toilets for Vacation Bible School next week; only real churches can do that.

As long as “The Family” or “The Poor” or “The Church” are abstract concepts, as long as my interaction is as distant as a government policy, they can be whoever I want them to be.

The Spirit warns us about this. Jesus lit into the Pharisees for “fighting for” the Law of God while ignoring their financial obligations to their parents, all under the guise of their religious advocacy (Mark 7:10-12). The Apostle Paul tells us that a man who doesn’t “provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household” has “denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim 5:9).

And James, particularly, shows us the difference between “fighting” for a cause, and loving people. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). “Be warmed and filled” is advocacy; “get in here” is love.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m for government policies to protect the family and to care for the poor. J.D. Trout probably has a lot of good ideas as to how to do some of those things. I’m for missions activity for people I’ll never see or know. But I have to remind myself that “fighting” for such things is a great deal easier than loving those people, the ones God has put around me in my house, my neighborhood, and my church.

Truth is, apart from the transformative power of Christ, we’re all something like the empathy expert. We want to live by our self-crafted motto, “I am my brother’s keeper (some restrictions apply).”