The Pastor as Theologian and the Theologian as Pastor

My dad has a very good article on his blog today titled ‘Pastor-Theologians/Theological Pastors‘. This is something that I have been reading about in a couple different places recently, first in Paul David Tripp’s book Dangerous Calling , (look for a review on it as soon as I finish. So far, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on pastoral ministry) and secondly as I’ve been talking to my dad and one of the other pastors I work with on The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor written by John Piper and D.A. Carson. The Church today needs people who are willing to be those who teach in the seminaries and those who are willing to work in the daily ministry of the church, and more importantly these relationships need to be partnerships where those is academia can be aware of issues going on in the church and respond properly in the training, while those in the church can be a voice to the lay people who are doing a different kind of ministry with their lives.

This is something that has also been on my mind recently as I begin to look at seminaries and think through how I can most effectively apply it to my life. I hope and pray for the wisdom to know how to best apply the training to my life and how to most effectively help others with the training I receive. I hope that the knowledge doesn’t puff up, but that love can build up.

Coy Mathis – Continued

One final thought on this issue that wasn’t expressed very well in my last blog, was referenced in my Blueberry Donuts blog, and expressed early on in my blog about this issue. At what age can a child “know” that they are a boy or a girl. In this case it seems that it’s very much the parents pushing, and ultimately the parents are the ones who need to be directing their children in what is appropriate and not. I find it hard to believe that a child at the age of 18 months would identify themselves as a girl without and prodding from their parents. So my answer to this issue remains the same-Coy should not be using the girls bathroom, but the parents are the ones who need to be held responsible for it. Sexuality in our culture is becoming a very grey issue, yet thanks to Scripture, Christians can and should treat it as a much more black and white issue than our culture allows.

Creating a Contrast Culture

The Gospel Coalition had an interesting article yesterday titled ‘Create a Contrast Culture in Your Church‘. The article starts of with many people asking what program the church uses to produce the discipling, evangelizing, and hospitality that are easy to see. The answer is not a program, but rather that they offer tools to create a different culture of discipling, evangelizing and hospitality.

One of the phrases that most stuck out to me was: “Think about the local church as an embassy from the future.” I had never thought about that before. Christians on this side of heaven are preparing for a new heaven and a new earth where we will constantly be in God’s presence in a New Jerusalem. I think there has been some great work done on helping us appreciate that heaven will not be us sitting around on clouds playing harps, but instead a place where we will continue to do the things we love to do, but without pain and suffering, just like the Garden of Eden (see Randy Alcorn’s Heaven).

The article then lists 12 ways churches can create a culture that contrasts the culture of the world around them. One of the most important that I see in this list is number five:

Encourage church members to build their lives into one another’s. Yes, we want friendships outside of our churches. But Christians should also prioritize relationships within their churches, where they can leverage the same ministry of the Word in one another’s lives.

I think it’s far too easy to neglect the church family for your own family or for your own wants and desires. I think people have a far too narrow view of their relationships-the relationships they have with people who are believers will last for eternity. The phrase “blood is thicker than water” is true, but the reverse is true for the church body, “water is thicker than blood.” Those of us who have been baptized into the body have a new family that we need to invest our lives into and encourage them regularly, and even more as each day brings us closer to the day of Christ’s return.

Coy Mathis and Sexual Confusion

Not to far away from where I live in in Cheyenne, is a little boy name Coy Mathis who has grown up acting and thinking he is a girl. The family was originally concerned with this, but as they took him to many doctors, they were told that Coy is simply a female trapped in a males body. He’s 6 years old. Before I get into the theological ideas behind this, what 6 year old knows the difference between the sexes? I don’t remember thinking anything was different until I hit puberty. Boys and girls were simply people that I was friends with. In the case of Coy, he apparently begin displaying feminine characteristics from the time he was 18 months old. He dresses as a girl, plays with girl toys and identifies himself as a girl. The school he’s attending has called his parents to inform them that Coy could no longer use the girl’s bathroom because he is a boy. The parents are now suing the school. What kind of a world are we now living in?

Looking in the Bible beginning in Genesis 1:27 we read, “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This verse has far reaching ramifications for today, far more than most people realize. From the very beginning of creation we see that God created humans as male and female. There are only 2 distinct sexes within creation. So while this is the way God originally intended creation to function, the story does not stop there, and everyone knows the next part of the story in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve chose sin over God. Going on to the New Testament in Romans 1, we see exactly what this sin has done, a few excerpts, starting in verse 18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…claiming to be wise, they became fools…therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves…for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” This shows us exactly what the effects of sin are! Instead of using our bodies in the way we should and the way they are intended people instead use their bodies for their own glory and what God has never intended them to be. So a boy is created as a boy and a girl is created as a girl.

We see later on in Romans everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. David says in Psalm 51 “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” So even the cute little babies who are just born are sinners, just like you and me. There is a fantastic article exploring the original link between sexuality and spirituality. We shouldn’t be surprised that this is the direction our culture is going. Instead it should drive us to the cross and to our knees in prayer both for our culture and for us to have the strength to take a stand.

So what should our response as Christians be to Coy Mathis? Well for one, it shouldn’t surprise us. Our culture will push back to truth and will continue to encourage “expressing” yourself through your sexuality. I think the school made the right choice in not allowing Coy to use the girls bathroom, he is a boy whether he thinks so or not, and should continue to use the bathroom that has been designed for his body.

One Family?

I just read this fantastic article titled ‘One Family Under God‘ at the Ligonier website. The article is challenging the assumption that churches should have a separate children’s church because we are called to be one body. This is something that I have felt at can often struggle with at the church I serve now, especially as I help out with the youth group ministry.

I think the most powerful point in the article is:

A church that ministers effectively to all age groups will keep the gospel alone as the foundation for church life and unity. Believers of all ages must be taught that our union with Christ, regardless of age, is what makes us one body. A tenyear- old Christian has more in common with an eighty-year-old Christian than with ten-year-old unbelievers. Where this is recognized and celebrated, real gospelcentered community thrives.

I’ve said this since I came to this church! We cannot have each different age group spending time only with that age group. I think this has changed the landscape of the church and has contributed to the decline of twenty somethings going to church. We are to be one body for a purpose-not fragmented pieces of a body spread throughout different locations.

The Consequences of a Liberal Lifestyle

I found a very interesting story about how the culture is pushing a 10 year old to become a gamer as well as watch explicit videos on YouTube. You can read the article here. This is a very sad commentary on what is going on in the world today. This is something I experienced in going to public school in rural North Dakota, with people showing me pornographic pictures in 7th grade. Thankfully, gaming wasn’t as big of an issue, and the only online interaction we had was MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, and I even had to sneak onto those to use them!

My only concern with the article is Rod’s response. As he explains why this is the very reason he homeschools his kids, he goes on to say that parents are alone in this struggle:

Your kids’ school is not going to help you, and may not be able to even if it wanted to.

Your church, lacking an awareness of the seriousness of the cultural situation, and perhaps having lost confidence in its message, is probably not going to help you. Your community is probably not going to help you either, because people either choose not to see what’s happening, or understandably feel so powerless against technology and the deeper cultural forces it carries with it that they tell themselves it’s not as bad as all that.

It’s just you. What now?

I find this even more sad than a liberal culture negatively affecting children! Of course the culture is going to continue to push Christians away from what is good right and true, but does that mean families need to pull in even closer to their “bubble” to protect themselves without any concern for what is going on around them? NO! This is the very reason we have the church and community around us to lovingly support rebuke and encourage us in our growth in holiness. Yes, the church hasn’t always done a good job of reaching out to families and helping to protect them, I’m struggling with this at the church I serve in as well, but there are many good families who are together doing the best they can to help each other as they raise their children to, Lord willing, become godly men and women. If we don’t have the church to support us in this, who do we have? I’m incredibly grateful for families who took an interest in me as I was growing up. Even when I go back home today I’ll stop and visit those parents just to catch up. That is what the body should do as we live in a broken culture. Don’t withdraw, but engage and show how we interact with the world around us in a godly way.

What’s Wrong With “The Bible”

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the first part of the new TV series The Bible last night. After seeing many commercials for it and even reading a tweet from Tim Tebow himself, I thought I better sit down and watch it. To be completely honest, I don’t think too highly of it. I missed the first about 20 minutes of it, and came in when Abraham and Sarai are trying to figure out how to have kids, Sarai finally admits that Abraham should try with her servant, Hagar.

For those of you who know the biblical story, there are many things that happen in the beginning (Genesis). The story felt so rushed as it pointed out the things the filmmakers viewed as important, but it seemed to me to leave many things out.

One of the things I appreciated about the show was that it really made me see things from the humans perspective as it was telling the story. For example, Abraham had tears streaming down his face as he offered his one and only son as a sacrifice to God. It’s really easy to read through these stories and causally pass over the emotional side that the biblical figures had to deal with.

The other thing I noticed was that it actually does a pretty good job of ultimately pointing to God. God wasn’t portrayed as a big bad guy or someone hell-bent on destruction but as the God who continually cares for his people.

Now my hesitations with the show: it seemed like they focused far too much on the human side and how mankind was continually doing good things and missing many of the effects of sin. Sodom and Gomorrah especially felt very off to me. The angels who escorted Lot and his family out of the city strike the men trying to get into Lot’s house with blindness, then run down a street and turn into ninjas with swords single handedly killing 10 men. As I’ve read through Scripture, I don’t see a need to add any violence to it-there’s quite enough in there to fill an R-rated film as it is. Finally, I didn’t understand why they picked the stories they did and spent the amount of time they did. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah was given 10-15 minutes of the 2 hour movie that covered creation through the crossing of the Red Sea. I understand that there’s only so many events they can cover from the Bible in a 10 hours mini series, but it seems that instead of majoring on the major themes, they majored on some of the minor stories to make it more exciting.

Overall, I hope this pushes people to read Scripture for themselves and explore more of the greatest story ever told, but am afraid that it will do the opposite. Why read the book when you can see the movie, after all? So the way I’ve described the movie to a few friends is: it was better than I expected, but not as good as it could have been or I was hoping it would be. It has the potential to be a great conversation starter, but ultimately I think it could do a better job of pointing to the God who has worked all of history to be HIS story.

ADDED:

I just read a great blog here on some more hesitations with this series. I completely agree that the writers missed the great theme of the Bible as a whole and instead focus far too much on the human side, missing the story of GOD redeeming His people for His purpose and His glory.

Zion – Hillsong United

One of the things about being a musician and leading the worship through music at a church is that many of the songs start to sound the same. There was a funny video put on youtube that is incredible true: How to Write a Worship Song in 5 Minutes or Less. All it takes is 4 chords and some popular “catch phrases” that people like to sing. Is this enough? As I’ve said before, I’m tired of Christians writing bad music, and the popular worship music that has been written recently has all started to sound the same. Yes, the words are good and I think many of the songs are very good songs, but I’ve been hoping and waiting for a little innovation. Enter: Hillsong United with their new CD Zion. This is the exact kind of worship CD I’ve been wanting to write!

I was first introduced to Hillsong United after my senior year of high school with the song “Mighty to Save” which I still do regularly at my church. I think Hillsong has tended to be on the front lines of worship music. We’ve gotten used to the music at church being: an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, piano, keyboard, bass, drums and a couple singers. I think Hillsong is starting to push back to that a little on this album. Someone on my facebook commented that it sounds like a mix of Passion Pit and Mumford & Sons. The Passion Pit comparison I can see, but not so much the Mumford & Sons one (side note: for a good Mumford & Sons comparison, listen to Rend Collective Experiment, another one of my recent favorite worship bands). Sure the guitars and pianos and drums are still there, but the main focus musically has been shifted to the electronics, which I think is a good change. In my first listening, my favorite songs are: Relentless, Oceans, Scandal of Grace, and Mercy Mercy. This CD is a must buy for those who are tired of hearing the same songs used for worship. Get the Deluxe Version too-the remixes are fun to listen to.

Blueberry Donuts – Caught Not Taught

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot lately about why students are leaving the church, and even last week wrote a blog on it. Yet as I’ve been doing more reflecting on it, I really think it gets back to the responsibility of the parents. No where in Scripture do I see church leaders being held responsible for what is going on in kids’ lives. Sure, James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” but I don’t see the teachers being held accountable for another persons sin, but I do see it being the parents responsibility for their children (Eph 6:1-4, Deut 6:6-9, Titus 2:4, Proverbs 22:6). Now I want to be careful to not cross into legalism here, and I think many times the phrase “it takes a village” to raise a child is very true. We need the church and the support of the people in the church to help raise children-parents need to be willing to admit they can’t do it on their own. Yet what I see throughout Scripture and in my own life is a very important phrase to remember in being a parent. What kids learn is often caught not taught.

This morning I went to the grocery store to buy some more creamer for my coffee. Every time I go to get creamer I grab a donut on my way. This donut it a blueberry donut, which is my favorite donut for one reason – that’s the exact kind of donut my dad always used to get when I was growing up. I remember there was a donut shop in La Crosse, Wisconsin that my dad would take me to (I don’t remember the name of it) and they had a blueberry donut that my dad apparently really liked and would get every time. Because of that, I would also get a blueberry donut, and they continue to be my favorite to this day. So parents: what are you teaching your kids today? Do they see someone who is following Christ with their whole life, or someone who just goes to church because it’s what they are expected to do? Children are a lot more observant than you might think so be careful: your actions speak a whole lot more than your words.

Frozen By Indecision

I found an article this morning (thanks to Tim Challies who posts links to blogs every day) titled ‘Are You Worshiping the Idol of ‘Open Options.” It’s a fantastic article that says a lot of things that I’ve been saying for years! I have struggles with this issues throughout my life as well when trying to figure out which college to go to, who to date, what to major in, where I should work and a host of other questions. In the middle of these struggles, Kevin DeYoung wrote a book called Just Do Something that has become my go-to book on God’s will and making decisions. The title of the book is so helpful in determining the will of God in your life: just do something! Anything! God will continue to guide you! My Senior Pastor uses the picture of a car, it can’t change direction if it’s standing still.

I can think of many people my age who just refuse to make decisions and try to spiritualize it by saying, “I’m just waiting to figure out God’s will for my life.” I hate to say it, but by not doing anything you’re outside of God’s will! Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” And in 1 Thessalonians 4:2, Paul again says, “For this is the will of God, your holiness.” Stop and read that last word again. HOLINESS. If you are living in a Christian community, submitting to the leadership of the church, regularly learning and growing in the Word and continually being conformed into the image of Christ, then go make some decisions! Find a good spouse and get married and have some kids, take a job across the country that helps you provide for your family, grow up and move out on your own, make some mistakes and continue to be made more like Christ! Trust his faithfulness as you continue to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received.