All posts tagged Evangelical

What it Means to Be Free – Sermon Manuscript

-We’re going to spend the next 4 weeks looking at some questions I’ve gotten over this calendar year, this week as you saw in that video, we’re looking at the denomination we’re a part of the EFCA. I’m also going to be trying something new with this series, so if you have questions during the sermon or as your processing throughout the week, text 651-252-4486 and I’ll answer those either in Sermon Scraps or in next week’s sermon. 

-So you know where we’ll be going: next week we’ll be looking at the order of the ordinances, then we’ll talk about the office of Deacon which was just added to our bylaws, and finally we’ll talk about how to disagree. But today, what it means to be free because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the EFCA and what we’re about. And I think a lot of the questions parallel our current societies questions. 

-One of the primary issues in our world today is around your identity. Who are you, who do you want to be or become? I grew up in the era where you were told you could be whatever you wanted to be! So I decided (like most people my age) that I was going to play in the NBA. You may not be able to tell this from where you’re sitting, but I’m white. I’m also a solid 6 foot nothing. Which means my prospects for playing in the NBA were slim to none. But people wouldn’t tell kids that back then! Instead, I had to come to that realization myself through a lot of trial & error.

-There should have been signs though. Some of you have met my parents, they’re both the same height: 5’9” (probably shorter now as they’ve gotten older). Honestly, I’m just glad my first number got to 6 instead of staying in the 5’ range, thankfully my mom’s side has some height!

-Time has a way of tempering our expectations as we start to come to grips with the reality of ourselves and the world. Youth has a naivety about it that as you get older looks simultaneously cute and stupid! The message that you can be or do whatever you want is just not true! We’re all wired differently, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, we’re all products of a wide assortment of things, including the genetic makeup of your heritage, and the reality is we can’t escape those things – we are products of our histories. This somewhat runs contrary to so much of what we’re taught today. Our culture trains us to throw off all the shackles of tradition and chase our own desires. That’s basically the primary point of every Disney movie: “betcha on land they understand, bet they don’t reprimand their daughters sick of swimming.” Or “see the line where sky meets the sea, it calls me, no one know how far it goes.” Or even more explicit: “No rights, no wrongs, no rules for me, I’m FREE!” And there we are, back at freedom. And depending on what you mean by that, it may be true! But there’s a passage in the Bible that talks about being free that I want us to read together to get a sense of what the EFCA is about.

-There are 3 points to today’s sermon, and we’re going to spend most of our time on point 2 because I think it needs the most work! First is what is “free”? Second, what is an evangelical (wait before jumping to conclusions on that word), and finally the reality of the EFCA is an unofficial motto: we’re better together.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1034)

  1. What is “Free”?

-We’re going to start with the biblical and theological point, and then we’re going to get to what the Free in EFCA stands for historically. We just read this text, but there are 3 things I want you to see in from this text that will help us understand this point. As Americans, this is one of the core things to the founding of our country! You can buy “freedom” t-shirts at Wal-Mart every summer! But is that the same thing as Christian freedom that Paul is talking about here?

-We need to understand 2 aspects to freedom: freedom from something vs. freedom to something. Our culture pushes freedom from everything! That’s Disney again, throw off all the shackles so we can be free and true to ourselves. But that’s a different form of slavery. Slavery to our individual wants and desires that change from moment to moment.

-There’s a great picture of this in the show Bluey (if you don’t have young kids right now, you’re missing out on some QUALITY TV, much better than the Barney I had growing up). It’s about a family of Australian blue-heeler dogs who go about their normal lives. In 1 episode, the family is going on a walk, and one of the kids is complaining about being “too tired” to walk, but then they start playing a game and the kid is running in circles as the walk continues. But as soon as the game is done, she’s suddenly “too tired” again. The best thing about this show is how much it parallels real life! We adults are the same way: our motivations and desires change from moment to moment, we are often slaves to our desires.

-But Jesus offers us freedom to live a flourishing life. However, that means there are boundaries to our freedom. If we’re following after Him, we’re not “free” to pursue sin, those things are antithetical to each other. Our tendency as Americans is to focus on vs. 1 and miss vs. 13-15, let me show you what I mean:

-We read vs. 1 and because of the climate that we live in, we jump to we are free from the yoke of slavery. But that misses the bigger context of Paul’s argument here. The freedom isn’t to go do whatever we want, the freedom is to go serve one another! But what’s the temptation? It’s to bite and devour, to fight and push for your own freedoms at the expense of others. Paul is telling us our freedom is a freedom to go serve others, giving higher priority to others because that’s what Christ did for us.

-The second piece I want you to take away from this is that the cross is offensive. Now I want to be careful, because that doesn’t mean you should be a jerk in your witnessing to others. The cross does and should offend people, but we shouldn’t be offensive to people, there is a difference! The last verse here is one of the funniest verses in the Bible – Paul is talking about circumcision, and the word he uses here means to completely cut off, so he’s saying why stop with circumcision? You should go all the way!

-The final piece from this is vs. 6. This is the reminder that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but that faith that saves us isn’t alone, it comes with strings attached. You can see the focus of our lives as Christians begins with faith, but then it has flesh on it: expressing itself outwardly through love.

-This is what we’re freed to do: to love others just like Jesus loved us. We aren’t saved by our good works, but we are saved (and freed) to do good works to others. Eph. 2 says it like this:

-So the idea of freedom is an idea that’s rooted in Scripture. We’re freed to live as God intended, not giving in to sin. There’s a song from Cityalight that says it this way: “Yes, He rose that we would be free indeed! Free from every plan of darkness, free to live and free to love” Apart from that freedom that has been won in Christ, we can’t truly live or love.

-But historically, the free in EFCA has meant that we are “free” from state-imposed rule. We are congregational in our polity. Let me explain all those words:

-In many European countries there is an official state church that oversees and manages the churches. That means taxes also go to support the pastor and church facilities. The EFCA intentionally didn’t want any higher oversight, so for us the highest governing body is the congregation. Our members are involved in most major decisions of our church (and that’s true of all EFCA churches), that’s what being congregational is.

-Polity is the same word for politics. How does a church govern itself? In the EFCA, the congregation is the highest governing body, where each church determines our leaders (elders/pastors), our annual budget, is involved in membership, taking on any debt, facility purchases, those kinds of major decisions. Here’s the way the EFCA states it:

-Autonomous doesn’t mean independent. We don’t get to make all our decisions on our own. By associating with the EFCA we are agreeing that we will support what the EFCA is doing (hence interdependent). We’re not DEpendent on the denomination, nor are we completely INdependent where we do whatever we want, as we’ll see at the end, we’re better together than apart, which is where INTERdependent is a helpful descriptor for us. 

  • What is an Evangelical?

-Now for the first word! And part of the reason we’re going to spend the bulk of our time on this word is because of the misunderstanding of this word in our culture today. For many people the word “Evangelical” has become a political marker and not a religious marker. Each election cycle we’re told what percentage of “evangelicals” voted for a candidate, but first I don’t think that’s accurate, and second what I’ve read about those polls is people self-identify out of a list of options, which means we have Buddhist evangelicals, Mormon evangelicals, and even Muslim evangelicals! When we use that word, we’re not talking about anything in American politics, we’re going back to a Greek word pronounced euongelion (which I put on the screen, because you can see how we can transliterate that into evangel, the base of evangelical) and all that word means is “good news.” 

-The early Reformers even described themselves as “evangelicals” so Luther described his movement as the (in German) evangelische kirche in English, evangelical church. So that term has more history to it than modern day American politics.

-And where this intersects with the EFCA is that the history of the day parallels the evangelical movement, so in order for us to understand our denomination, we need to understand what we mean when we say we’re “Evangelical,” and part of the difficulty is there’s no one to tell the world what it means! There’s general agreed upon ideas, but it includes Christians from a wide assortment of beliefs! 

-One of the most cited definitions of an Evangelical comes from a historian named David Bebbington who says Evangelicals are known by these 4 things (therefore this is often referred to as “Bebbington’s quadrilateral”)

-Another one is from the NAE (which the EFCA has been involved in since its founding), and they define it this way: 

-Finally, Thomas Kidd, a historian on evangelical religious history wrote a book titled ‘Who is an Evangelical?’ who defines it this way:

-I hope you can see some of the similarities! Evangelicals are Bible people, who emphasize the need for spiritual birth and then work to live and apply that belief to their lives, which is a good summary of the EFCA! Since it’s origination, the EFCA has been focused on the Bible, has sought to be faithful in evangelizing others about Jesus, and has looked for ways to care for the poor and marginalized. For example, in 1996, the EFCA passed a resolution titled, “A Stranger at Our Gates: A Christian Perspective  on Immigration.” This statement was explicitly stated to apply to all immigrants, whether legally documented, or not. I’m not saying that to make a political statement, we need some nuance on this conversation, if you want to talk more about that, email me and let’s grab coffee, but also keep in mind, this statement was written in 1996, 30 years ago! Friends, the more things change, the more things stay the same.

-With all that background to evangelicals, I want to share a brief history of the EFCA with you, which largely parallels the broader evangelical movement, and begins as a movement of immigrants from Sweden and Norway in the latter half of the 1800s. One of the descriptions I’ve heard from people trying to define the EFCA is we’re “like Baptists, but we’re not Baptists” and that’s not actually true. Our founding had a different focus and emphasis than the Baptists did, which you can see on this chart: the 3 primary streams of denominations that came out of the Reformation, and the EFCA is based out of the Lutheran stream, Baptists come out of the Anglican stream. 

-As for the history of the EFCA, we’re going to look at it tracing the mottos of the EFCA, which are:

-We’ll start with the first, and most important one: where stands it written.

-This gets to the primary focus of the Bible for us. The EFCA came out a pietistic movement in Scandinavia that was brought over to the US by immigrants from those countries (primarily Swedish and Norwegian). By piety, I don’t mean something negative, they took it from the Latin word pietaswhich means devotion. They were Lutherans who wanted to take their faith seriously and saw themselves in the lineage of the original Lutheran, Martin Luther. This pietistic impulse led to something known as the “Readers movement” where Christians would gather in homes to read the Bible and apply it to their lives (kind of like we do Life Groups today!) 

-The Bible has always been the focus of the EFCA, and that even impacted the founders of our movement. 2 names that comes up repeatedly when talking about the EFCA are Ellen Modin and Frederik Franson. Frederik was a Swedish traveling evangelist who wanted people to know about Jesus. He spent time in Chicago learning from and emulating DL Moody, and was referred to as “Moody’s Swedish disciple.” 

-Around the same time, Ellen Modin became the EFCA’s first supported missionary who was sent to the Mormons in Utah.

-As they started wanting to send more missionaries and continue expanding their reach and influence, they started realizing they couldn’t just operate by themselves, so they had their first conference in Boone, IA in 1884, which continued emphasizing the Bible, and from that conference this motto originated!

-The Swedes and the Norwegians both continued along parallel paths throughout the beginning of the 20th century, but a controversy was brewing that set the trajectory for the EFCA in the future. Today it’s referred to as the fundamentalist/modernist controversy. The question was centered on the work of God and the Bible being reliable. The “modernists” were influenced by the enlightenment and argued that miracles can’t happen, the “fundamentalists” argued for the “fundamentals” of the faith (wasn’t negative). The EFCA, being Bible people, landed on the side of the fundamentals, which eventually went 2 directions, the first was to become modern-day fundamentalist (arguing over every theological issue), and what are today called “Evangelicals.” 

-This leads us to the 2 motto: All believers, but believers only.

-This statement came out of the evangelical vs. fundamentalist divide and is an implication of theological triage: (EXPLAIN)

-The EFCA intentionally looks to focus on the essential tenants of the historic Christian faith without compromise, but to hold those convictions as graciously and charitably as possible. It’s possible speak the truth but be a jerk about it, this is the EFCA’s way of saying we’re not going to be a fighting fundamentalist. This is the way it’s historically been said in the EFCA: 

-Along with this movement, the 2 Free Churches (Norwegian & Swedish) starting having conversations about merging together, and another father of the EFCA, A.T. Olson, chaired a merger committee, which was finalized in 1950, dropping the European names and becoming the Free Church of America. One of the people involved in this process stated: “We’ll never stop being Norwegian, or Swedes, but tomorrow we will all be American.” Here’s Olson presenting a book celebrating the 75th anniversary (back to 1884) to President Eisenhower in 1959

-What started as a Scandinavian movement eventually realized we needed to reach beyond ourselves to truly represent the communities we lived in. This was FAR more than debating whether we should continue speaking Norwegian in our worship services (which was an early debate!) and it brought attention to the EFCA needing to reflect all peoples across the world, because all peoples in the world need the gospel. This has 2 implications, the first the missions of the EFCA, which includes 550 missionaries in 40 countries across the world, but closer to home it means looking beyond our Scandinavian heritage and reaching out to people from other tribes and tongues and nations who comprise what is today America! One of the big celebrations of the book is that our current acting president is an African American (being voted to officially become the president in June). Carlton Harris did his first internship out of seminary at First EFC in Wichita, KS in 1981, but several families left the church because he was African-American. Friends, that’s a part of our history, too. It’s not always the right things, and we need to be ok with acknowledging our past and working to grow more like Jesus over time.

-The last motto gets at the focus on discipleship (becoming more like Jesus), and I think this is where the history of the EFCA gets fun (in my mind) because our church has some strong connections to the EFCA! As I was reading the book, I came across this picture from 1984, 6 years after our church was planted, featuring our very own Ed Bender, who was receiving training on intentional discipleship. 

-A couple chapters later, I came across my dad, who still works in that role today, this also mentions Bill Hamel who was a member here at South Sub! And THEN, as it was discussing the rewrite of our SOF leading up to the 2008 vote, look who also got a shoutout! We hosted a conference here in 2006, the year after this room was built! And if you didn’t know, the headquarters for the EFCA are right off 494 & Cedar (so make sure you wave whenever you drive by)!

  • We’re Better Together

-As I mentioned at the beginning, there’s also a 4th motto that came up in the book, but I hadn’t heard other places, and that is the third point of the sermon: we’re better together. What started as a wide assortment of individuals coalesced into churches, which banded together to create a denomination that remains tethered to God’s Word, compassionate about reaching the lost, looking to love others in what we say and in how we live, and is committed to making disciples among all peoples. Last year, acting president Carlton Harris shared 4 words that he believes summarizes the EFCA from the past and into the future, and if you go the EFCA website you’ll see them on the front page: biblical and missional, united and free.

-The Bible is our highest source of authority, but we don’t exist to learn more Bible, the Bible compels us to look beyond ourselves and live missionally throughout the rest of our lives (loaded word that I don’t have time to explain now, text me if you want me to explain more about that)

-Similarly, we’re united together around our SOF, but we are free to love and serve the community that God has placed us in, but we don’t use that freedom to pursue selfishness, instead use it serve each other in love.

-Since I arrived 6 years ago, I’ve been working to more closely align us with the EFCA. In 2021 we hosted the same conference we had hosted in 2006, that same year we also hosted a national worship leader gathering. The EFCA has its’ problems and issues that need to be dealt with, but that’s true of any and every church and denomination until Jesus returns! I’m grateful for the EFCA, and am excited about what God continues to do in our little corner of the Evangelical world, and I hope this excites you to be a part of this denomination as well!

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by mikethestrand on August 16, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 16, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/08/16/what-it-means-to-be-free-sermon-manuscript/

The Avoidance of Titles

As I’ve expressed before, during college I somehow found myself in the middle of those who consider themselves “young, restless and reformed.” The one time I interacted with Collin Hansen I was introduced as “one of the people you wrote about.” (thanks Dad…) I quickly embraced the title and began reading and listening to more Piper, Driscoll and Chandler and then went to as many of the “Gospel” conferences as I could (T4G, The Gospel Coalition). I enjoyed the commitment to the Word and history of the church but didn’t always enjoy the connotations that came with identifying myself as a “Calvinist.” After having the books for 2 years, I’ve finally been digging in to “Against Calvinism” and “For Calvinism” and find myself resonating much more with Calvinism than I ever have before, but still don’t always like what comes with the label.

Reading through a couple blogs today on what has been dubbed “the Neo-Calvinism” (which you can read about here and here) and continuing to reflect on where I’m at and where I’ve been I’m continuing to find myself less within the so-called neo-calvinism movement and more likely to consider myself to be an Evangelical, to which my dad has been delighted. So what do I mean by Evangelical?

Evangelical gets it’s name from the Greek word evangelion which we translate as “gospel” so the whole gospel centered movement is Evangelical in nature. I uphold Scripture as the ultimate authority in my life and daily strive to be more like Christ. In this way I am also reformed, in that I am constantly reforming my life to the message of the Bible. I can join with the early church fathers in reciting and agreeing with the creeds of the early church and go back to Christ’s final command in Matthew 28 to spread the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

This is also something I often hesitate to do because so many labels come with so much baggage. Calvinists tend to be over bearing and domineering without much grace extended. Many people don’t know what an evangelical is or what one believes. And reformed tends to bring to mind Luther and the Reformation. What are some labels you’ve seen in your life that have either been helpful or unhelpful?

In the same vein, some of my hesitancy to use labels to identify myself is because neo-calvinism is currently the “cool” title to use. And while there are some aspects of it I so resonate with and will whole heartedly agree with, there is some hesitancy for me to jump on bandwagons. I know things come and go so quickly in the church and don’t want to be swept away by the newest trends-even if they’re good things. I know that the truth is here to stay and am continuing to trust God to lead and guide the church of yesterday, today and forever.

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by mikethestrand on June 25, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 25, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/06/25/the-avoidance-of-titles/

Reflections on Singing At Church

There’s been a blog that’s I’ve seen getting a lot of attention recently titled ‘Are We Headed for a Crash? Reflections on the Current State of Evangelical Worship‘ that led me to a really good blog from a fellow music pastor who has clearly thought through many issues that come with being a music pastor. Some of his ideas are spot on, some of them I’m planning to steal, and others I just can’t agree with. This one that has gotten a lot of attention is one of the ones I can’t find myself completely agreeing with.

In my own journey I’ve been inundated with theology from birth (thanks a lot Dad!). I “discovered” in college that I was both Reformed and a Calvinist and so I gladly jumped on the “young, restless, reformed” movement of Evangelicalism attending conferences like The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel, and even attending John Piper’s church in Minneapolis after college. Over the past couple years I’ve slowly found myself drifting away from that and into more of what I would describe as an Evangelical direction. I can’t completely agree with everything I’ve seen in these circles and while I still have such a great deal of respect for many people in the movement, I’ve found my own lines widening in include more than I would’ve 5 years ago. The zeal without knowledge described me to a T. With that came a certain expectation I had for music and worshipping on Sunday mornings. I know we all come to Sundays with certain expectations and I was no exception. Yet as I’ve continued leading a congregation in weekly worship through music, I’ve seen more of a resurgence in applying biblical and pastoral truths to the role of the “worship pastor.”

Last October I had the opportunity to attend our denominations worship leader conference in Minneapolis and got to connect with a number of like-minded and similar aged people who were wrestling through similar issues as me. The biggest thing that struck me, however, was that the younger 20 and 30 something music leaders viewed this role with a pastoral heart and are seeking to do our best to shepherd the flock entrusted to us instead of viewing it as a performance or a way to build up ourselves. I know many people, especially musicians, can get a big head very quickly, and I pray every Sunday for God to increase and help me to decrease. It doesn’t take much for me to get high on praise, but it’s a constant battle to make God greater in and through my life. And this seems to be the heart cry of many people my age who are gifted in music and using that gift in the local church. I am so excited by what I’ve seen as a transition from professional musician to co-laborer and pastor in the Gospel once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).

The other issue I have with this article (and many other articles and books) is that it seems to paint a one-size-fits-all portrait of how music should be done in a church. He writes, “Keep the lights up. Stop talking so much. Don’t let loops/lights/visuals become your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the gospel. Point to Jesus. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t sing songs with bad lyrics or weak theology.” I don’t think the things he lists here need to distract from the the message, but can and should allow us to better worship God, who gave people the gift of creativity. In fact, the picture I see in heaven where we will perfectly worship God is more beautiful than John can even begin to describe or fathom. It’s like he’s struggling for words to show how great this place is. And it has different colors and different materials and all points to God. I think the same thing can be done on a Sunday morning in a local church body.

That being said, I am grateful for Jamie bringing this issue to light, as I mentioned, it is a battle for anyone who is in front of a large group to make it all about Christ and keep the focus on him instead of us. We too often think too highly of ourselves at the expense of God. May all of our lives, including Sunday morning singing be done to the honor and glory of Christ alone.

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by mikethestrand on May 28, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Church, Music, Theology, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 28, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/05/28/reflections-on-singing-at-church/

On Friends and Struggles

It’s fairly well understood now that the 20s are some of the hardest times for people. Many of us are in jobs we don’t love, watching the skills we’ve spent a couple decades developing seem to waste away. Or others are in their dreams job enjoying waking up and going to work every morning. Some of us are riding solo, whether impatiently or patiently, while others are blissfully enjoying married life, maybe even with kids. There’s also the seemingly transient nature of the 20s where people move across the country for a better job after you met them a month earlier. The past few years for me have been full of so many of these changes: from graduating college then moving back home where I didn’t have any friends, to moving in with guys I met at a small group, then leaving them 10 months later to take a position 1000 miles away in the church I currently work at to now looking at starting seminary this fall. The past four months have been some sweeping changes for me as God has revealed some incredible things to me on what it means to be a friend and what it means to struggle.

I’ve been doing an early morning study with my roommates going through the  book “The Dudes Guide to Manhood” by Darrin Patrick. This weeks chapter was on being a friend, and the following sentences struck me:

“Guys actually enjoy serving each other. We are willing to load moving trucks and work on major landscaping projects together. What we don’t like is being served.”
-105

I think this is true not only of guys, but of gals as well. I so often find myself wanting to take care of everything by myself, without asking anyone for help. I still sometimes feel as if I have something to prove. I hate admitting I have weaknesses and am in regular need of help from those around me. I don’t even like telling a girl I’m interested in that I have weaknesses and struggles and have glaring areas that I struggle with.

On Struggles

Last month (April) was an incredibly busy month for me with Easter planning. I also had decided it would be a good year to add a new Easter service on Thursday night, celebrating the Last Supper. This meant I had to plan a Maundy Thursday service, a Good Friday service and an Easter service, one of which the church hadn’t done before. I struggled praying and searching for different ideas on how to make each service unique but still meaningful, and then also got sick with 2 ear infections and a sinus infection. To top it all off, I was in the midst of applying for a scholarship that would pay for all my tuition for seminary, and I’d been told they had some big concerns with awarding me the scholarship. It felt like God was pulling the rug out from underneath my feet and my foundation was crumbling. I was stretched to the max and worried about how I was now going to pay for seminary. Then God threw another curveball.

Two hours after I got the call sharing the concerns with awarding me the scholarship for seminary, I got a call from said seminary telling me they had decided to award me the scholarship despite their hesitations. All this was 2 hours before the first of 3 services that weekend. Then God reminded me that He loves pouring His blessings out on His children as all three services were incredibly fruitful and a blessing to those who came.

On Friends

Throughout this difficult month, there were a number of people who took time to pray with me and pray for me. Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Ultimately this verse finds it’s fulfillment in God’s Son, Jesus Christ who is now our adopted brother through his work on the cross. But I also believe that God sends people into our lives who are an earthly representation of Christ to us. I think of the friends I was blessed with in high school, and then in college, and then post college and now in the church I serve. I know I have weaknesses and struggles that they can help me with and use as an opportunity to pray with me, pray for me, serve me and ultimately point me back to Christ.

“Authentic friendship is not one-sided. It is an equal commitment from both parties. True friends give and receive.

“True friends know you and want to be known by you-celebrate you and are willing to be celebrated by you. They challenge you and seek to be challenged by you. And they serve you and are willing to be served by you.”
-Darrin Patrick The Dudes Guide to Manhood, 103

I fear there are many people in the church today – particularly men – who are unwilling to let someone get close enough to them to experience the incredible blessings that come from being a part of a fellowship of believers. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (ESV) As has been pointed out many times before, this needs to happen within the confines of a local church. This is why it’s crucial to get plugged in to a local church. But while it is at the minimum church involvement, it can and should involve so much more than that. There should be a group of like-minded people with whom you regularly spend time, “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens iron.” (Proverbs 27:17) There should be a group of people who know why you are the way you are and what makes you tick. And what if there isn’t a group like this at your church? Then create one. It’s incredibly easy to find people would be willing to get together over a cup of coffee or a meal and share what’s going on with them. Ask questions and seek to get to know them on a deeper level then what they enjoy eating.

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by mikethestrand on May 20, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 20, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/05/20/on-friends-and-struggles/

Are You Boring?

For much of my life I’ve tried very hard to be someone who is interesting and will stick out in a crowd. This is generally easy for me because of my outgoing and extroverted nature. In fact, most people I’ve met wouldn’t describe themselves as boring people. After I turned 25, I realized I’m not nearly as exciting as I try to make myself seem. In fact, I might even be considered boring. I get up around the same time every day, do the same things during the day, and then go to the same church every Sunday to meet with and encourage those around me. This week I read the book ‘Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life‘ after seeing it recommended on Tim Challies’ website a while ago, it had been on my list for a while.

Starting with Shane Claiborne, there has seemed to be a resurgence in living a “radical” or “sold-out” life to Christ. And generally this means that the way Americans live is bad and living on 10% of what we make should be the mark of a REAL Christian. Yet what about those who don’t make six-figure salaries, but are faithful in the jobs they’ve been giving? Those that lead their families faithfully, help serve in their church body and commune with God regularly? Is there room for a person like that in Christianity? I sure hope so, because that is essentially my life. In the introduction to the book, Michael says, “Chasing dreams isn’t the problem. Neither is maximizing what you have to make a difference in the world for the sake of Christ. The problem is in our definition of significance.” Throughout the rest of the book he does a wonderful job showing how the gospel affects our entire lives and purpose as we live out our boring lives to the praise and glory of God.

The first few chapters lay the groundwork for the specifics of following Christ in a boring life. First the story of Saul, who was called to be king when he was looking for donkeys. Is there anything more dull or boring than looking for donkeys? Yet God met him while he was looking for his families’ lost donkeys and used it as an opportunity to grab hold of Saul’s life and redirect his path. The problem is not many of us view or ordinary lives in view of God’s continual grace and guidance of our lives. We see ourselves as ordinary people, yet through Christ’s work in our lives we are anything but ordinary. Michael argues that the key to this is finding our contentment in Christ. He argues, “True contentment isn’t about settling for less. It’s about seeing the true value of what we already do have in Christ.”

This contentment and peace that comes from trusting that God is working in the ordinary means leads to a thankful and repentant heart trusting that God is using us for his glory. This includes regular times in God’s word, relationships with those around us, our spouse, our kids, our finances, our jobs, and our Sunday morning gatherings. All of these areas are things we see as ordinary parts of our lives, but because they have been infused by an extraordinary God, they are no longer ordinary. We are to continue to follow Christ in our daily monotonous lives. That is a truly extraordinary life. A life that is “radical” and “sold out” to Christ.

I would whole heartedly recommend this book to you. It removes the pressures of performance in our modern culture and allows you to rest in the grace and truth of what Christ has done for us. It views life through the lens of the gospel and demonstrates how to glorify God in the moments we consider boring and routine.

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by mikethestrand on April 30, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 30, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/30/are-you-boring/

Love God and Love Others

This has become one of the biggest themes I’ve heard repeated throughout the church recently. We are called to love God and love others. This is very true and what Jesus commanded in Matthew 22:34:40. In fact, Jesus said that those two commandments sum up the entire Law and the Prophets, so the message of the Old Testament is the same as the New: love God and love others. I worry that we have forgotten to first part of that phrase, and the only true way that we are able to love others, by loving God first and foremost above everything else. Jesus even takes it further than summing up the Law and the Prophets by telling his disciples in John 13 that love should be the mark of every Christian, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This commandment is the very foundation of our faith and is revealed to us in the beginning of Scripture in the creation of the world. 

John 1, echoing the phrasing of Genesis 1 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” God didn’t have a need to create us to receive for honor or worship, but chose to create us from an outpouring of his love and perfect fellowship that he has experienced among the Trinity for eternity. Tim Keller in his book Center Church writes that, “he created us to share in his love and service.” The holy and perfect God chose to share his love in his creation of us. Then in the overflow of that love, he allows us to enter into a relationship with him as sons and daughters. He was the one who initially modeled the “love God and love others” within the Trinity. The commandments that sum up our entire Scriptures have been forever displayed by God to bring about his glory. Then as we continue to love God we are able to even more abundantly love others. The overflow of God’s love in our lives should pour over into the lives of those around us – both believers in the church, and nonbelievers we are sharing the Gospel with in word and in deed. 

This whole idea leads me to my focus the past few months – my love of the church. The way we are expected to show our love to our brothers and sisters is through the church. We meet together to: “encourage one another” (Heb 10:25), partake in the Lord’s supper (1 Cor 11:17-34), “address one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph 5:19) and “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim 4:13). These things should be a part of all of our meetings and allow us to grow and “stir one another up to love and good works” (Heb 10:24). Love is best demonstrated within the local church and helps us better demonstrate Christ’s love to the world. How have you demonstrated Christ’s love this week? How can you better demonstrate Christ’s love?

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by mikethestrand on April 29, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 29, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/29/love-god-and-love-others/

Will the Real Church Members Please Stand Up?

I am tired of hearing so many complaints thrown against the church from those who no longer even attend church. There, I’ve said it and feel like a weight is finally off my chest. It’s really easy to stand against something you’re not involved in. We do this so regularly in our own lives. “Yes, I’m a Christian, but I’m not like THOSE Christians.” We build ourselves a nice little fence and are content to live inside it for the rest of our lives, leaving no room to be pushed, prodded or encouraged to think outside our fence. And unfortunately, that means we have a tendency to put God in our own little fence and refuse to allow Him to grow outside of it. As a much more published author than I has said, “Your God is too small.”

As has already been said by many people, they love Jesus but not the church. Unfortunately, that’s like saying you love a friend but can’t stand their spouse (admit it, you have one of those friends too!). And when you’re not regularly involved in something it’s really easy to judge it based on a preconceived notion. This has happened to me recently with the movie Gravity. The previews didn’t interest me at all so I didn’t think I’d be interested in seeing it at all, yet when I finally got around to seeing it, I was blown away! There’s a similar phenomenon with those disenchanted with attending church regularly. You can’t judge a church body accurately by a one week visit. It takes time to dig in and get to know the people that make up the church. And guess what happens when you start getting to know them? Issues come up, just as they do in every family I’ve ever met.

With many of those my own age who I’ve talked to, I’ve seen the reoccurring theme of always wanting and expecting the best things right now. We want the best/dream job right out of college, we want the most ideal church body that will serve all my needs, we want the killer body, the perfect significant other, the nicest car and the list could go on. The biggest lesson that has repeatedly come up in my life is that I need to do a better job of waiting and being patient. I don’t have my 401k set up perfectly, I don’t drive the nicest car, and I don’t even have a significant other! But God has me in this season for a reason, and I’m learning and growing through it. And one of the biggest ways I’ve grown has been because of the local church I’m involved in. I regularly spend time with people who are completely different than me. They vote differently, eat differently, read differently, talk differently and dress differently. And that’s good. That’s the way God has intended it. We are all works in progress who are regularly needing the reminder to be more like Christ.

So in this day of un-involvement and complaining, my biggest question is: what are you doing to change it? If there isn’t a church nearby that you like and connect with, how could you make it better? Is there a ministry area you could become involved in and help grow? It’s so easy to complain and blame these issues on other people, it’s much harder, but much more vital, to get plugged in and involved in people’s lives. So let’s spend more time together pushing each other to become more like Christ.

“And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.”

-1 Corinthians 11:1

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by mikethestrand on April 22, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 22, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/22/will-the-real-church-members-please-stand-up/

What Is the Gospel?

What is the gospel? We’ve all heard the many different examples listed and been told that it is literally “Good New” to the world. The Good News that Jesus has come to take our place and pay the penalty for our sins, but what does that mean? (It’s even been asked in a book.) I think it’s even become the “hot topic” within Christianity today with more books and conferences than any of us can or should partake in. But that pat answer doesn’t seem to do it justice, and while I never want to minimize the importance of the gospel, I think many of us take it for granted.

  • It it exclusively about “Good News”?
  • Is there multiple ways to express the gospel?
  • Is the gospel just another name for the Bible?
  • Do we have a “hole” in our gospel?
  • Can it be summed up in 6 words?
  • Have we missed the heart of the gospel?
  • Have we made it all about morality and sexuality separated from grace?
  • Is it all of these things? None? Some?

Obviously I can’t deal with all the issues raised about in regard to the gospel, but I think as I’ve read what people have said and are saying about the gospel, we’re missing a huge piece of it. The piece that we’re remembering this week in the church calendar. The biggest piece missing from our discussion about the gospel is the cross. Apart from the cross, the gospel isn’t good news at all. In fact, if the cross is taken completely out of the discussion, the Bible just makes me want to curl up and die.

So many times I’ve heard the gospel message summed up as either a salvation message or a call to “fix” the world by bringing God’s kingdom to earth. And while Jesus did inaugurate a new kingdom, it hasn’t yet reached it’s conclusion. We live in a time period where Christ has ALREADY begun his work in redeeming the world but it has NOT YET reached its final point. There are a number of things that won’t be resolved until Christ comes again to “judge the living and the dead.” We need to learn to be content living within this unresolved tension until Christ returns. No, the gospel can’t be summed up in a list of moral codes or absolutes, but it can be summed up in the cross. The fact that God loved and loves us despite our sin. The fact that God sent His one and only son into the world and “tabernacled” or “made his dwelling” among us. The fact that God has now reconciled us to Him by taking our sins, past, present and future, upon Himself. The fact that He continues to relentlessly pursue us and woo us to Himself.

It doesn’t take me very long to daily be reminded of my sinful state. I’m continually attempting to find ways to build myself up, even if it means tearing others down. What hope could a sinful man like me have? Through the cross, infinite hope.

In his expose of the gospel message, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 lays out the message of the gospel – but then shows us the hope we can have because the cross isn’t the final word – the resurrection is. In today’s culture it’s become commonplace to question the validity of Jesus. Was He really who He said He was? Did he really rise from the dead? Paul takes this to its logical conclusion when he says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” Questioning the message of the gospel is in vain because we have it clearly laid out for us in Scripture. No, it can’t be put in a list because it’s how we should live.

BUT

Jesus did leave his disciples, and us, with this command:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

I have yet to hear a sermon or read a blog that deals with this part of the great commission. Jesus told his disciples to observe all that He commanded. And Jesus laid out some pretty specific things. Honor your parents, love your neighbors, give to the poor and needy, and be perfect. How much of that list have you broken?

In one of my classes in college we attempted to condense the gospel to 140 characters to find out if we could tweet the gospel. I came to the conclusion that it can’t be done. In order to truly explain the message of the gospel I need to tell you about my life. Yes, the message of the gospel is that Christ has already done the work for us, but the implications for that have changed my entire life. Does your life paint a picture of the gospel, no matter how blurry or broken it is, or does it paint a picture of you? How has the gospel shaped your life today and where would you be without Christ’s work on the cross?

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Philippians 1:27

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by mikethestrand on April 14, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 14, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/14/what-is-the-gospel/

Can A Conservative Evangelical Millennial Still Have A Voice?

If there’s anything the recent World Vision issue has taught me, is that I am increasingly going to be on the short end of the stick. I am someone who sponsors a child through World Vision and was concerned when they changed their employees stance on same-sex marriage. No, I wasn’t going to abandon the child I sponsored, but I was uneasy about identifying with an organization that I cannot agree with theologically, especially when there are other organizations that do the same thing World Vision does without compromising their beliefs. This issue isn’t simply about marriage, but about the authority of Scripture. Yes, there is room for different interpretations of Scripture, but not for questioning what God has clearly commanded. And despite what many have tried to argue, the Bible is clear that homosexual acts are a sin (not the only sin, mind you, but still a sin).

As these issues begin to become more frequent, I am continually seeing that people don’t want to listen to or agree with me because I am a conservative Evangelical who looks to Scripture as my final authority and look back to church history to help me understand the issues of today. As soon as Scripture begins to be questioned the rest of the Christian worldview falls apart. So what do we do when, as a writer at Desiring God put, the Bible is the controversy?

I know that there are a number of Millennials who are in the same boat as me. After all, the “Young, Restless, Reformed” movement is still on the rise among many of the people I talk to. There’s a growing awareness of the need for biblical authority and understanding to help us deal with issues like what happened with World Vision. People are willing to change the message of the Gospel in an attempt to make it more palatable. But the Gospel isn’t palatable. It’s offensive. Jesus said things that got him in a lot of trouble. He said things that were incredibly offensive, like “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Our whole faith hinges upon the brutal execution of an innocent man. This is how God showed his love to the world. By hanging his one and only Son on the cross in our place. How can you soften that blow? How can you being a sinner sound rosy and cheerful? And it’s not a one time event, it’s not saying a sinner’s prayer and having fire insurance, it’s a daily act. I think Luther said it best when he said, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”

With all this concern that Evangelicals are shooting themselves in the foot by being too controversial, I think it’s necessary to look back at Jesus’ ministry to see just how offensive the Gospel really is. And I hope that drives people away! I’ve been saying for a while that I hope I offend people regularly. Not because of the things I do, but for the sake of the Gospel and Jesus being lived out in my life. I know I’m not always going to take the popular road, or the easy road, but I know that I will do my best to continue to follow the Lord’s leading and guiding in my life as I continue to live as a saved sinner in a sinful and broken world. I eagerly look forward to the day when Jesus will make everything right with the world and there won’t be controversy like this, but until that day, I will continue on.

For another look at this issue, see Trevin Wax’s article on this issue, it’s very helpful.

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by mikethestrand on April 2, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 2, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/02/can-a-conservative-evangelical-millennial-still-have-a-voice/

More Confessions Of A Millennial Evangelical Christian

Last week there was an uproar over a change in stance of the well known company World Vision, who changed their employee agreement form to allow same-sex sex within a same-sex marriage. Just two days later, they reversed their policy and wrote an apology letter to those they had offended. I was thrilled when World Vision changed their stance back, am glad they did so and think it was the right decision. But that also means that instead of getting criticism from the more conservatives, they are now getting criticism from the more liberal “Evangelicals.” Enter Rachel Held Evans.

Rachel burst onto the scene with her book “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” which I have yet to read (to see why I haven’t read it, read this review from Kathy Keller). Claiming to be an Evangelical Christian, Rachel has been blogging for years and has spoken very strongly against many within the Evangelical movement. I’ve never considered her to be an Evangelical, but just another liberal Christian, and I’ve never heard anyone who I respect who is an Evangelical Christian consider her to be an Evangelical either. She wrote an article for CNN titled ‘How evangelicals won a culture war and lost a generation,’ that gets to the heart of the issue for me. In the article she says the following:

There is a disproportionate focus on homosexuality that consistently dehumanizes, stigmatizes and marginalizes gay and lesbian people and, at least in this case, prioritizes the culture war against them over and against the important work of caring for the poor.

Evangelicals insist that they are simply fighting to preserve “biblical marriage,” but if this were actually about “biblical marriage,” then we would also be discussing the charity’s policy around divorce.

But we’re not.

As I grieved with my (mostly 20- and 30-something) readers over this ugly and embarrassing situation, I heard a similar refrain over and over again: “I don’t think I’m an evangelical anymore. I want to follow Jesus, but I can’t be a part of this.”

I feel the same way.

Whether it’s over the denial of evolutionary science, continued opposition to gender equality in the church, an unhealthy alliance between religion and politics or the obsession with opposing gay marriage, evangelicalism is losing a generation to the culture wars.

First, I’m not sure where she can accuse Evangelicals about not dealing with divorce. Divorce is something that has become commonplace in our culture, but the Evangelicals that I know and read have never supported divorce in any way shape or form. In fact, I’ve read the opposite from all of them! (See these articles here and here) And most of the ones I read take an even more stringent stance toward divorce than I do. But that also doesn’t take away from the fact that same-sex sex is a sin. It isn’t something exclusively taught in the Old Testament, and it isn’t progressive like slavery.

Secondly, this paints Evangelicals in the worst possible light. Rachel accuses us of denying evolutionary science, opposing gender equality, aligning religion and politics and an obsession with opposing gay marriage, none of which I see to be true. In fact, I know many Evangelicals who support evolutionary science (Tim Keller), who also support gender equality (but that doesn’t mean that men and women should have all the same roles in the church) and most Evangelicals I talks to try to keep their politics separated from their religion. I don’t see who Rachel is trying to paint in this bad light.

And finally, I’m glad that Rachel feels she can no longer identify herself as an Evangelical. It’s been clear to me as I’ve read more of the things she’s put out that she has never been an Evangelical, but is more like Brian McLaren, who are trying to claim association with Evangelicals while still belittling and continually ostracizing themselves from the Evangelical community. Yes, the Evangelical community is broad and includes differences of opinion on many issues, but to deny the role of Scripture as the sole authority is a train wreck. As soon as Scripture is questioned, people tend to take a liberal approach to Christianity, and it needs to be realigned.

This push back to the Evangelicals seems to be what the Emergent church of the early 2000s morphed in to. I’m looking forward to the day when we can all focus on Scripture together, using it as our sole authority and living that out. This doesn’t mean we hate those who are sinners, but welcome them in to the church, love them, and point them to Christ. This means we all are going to need to give up our sins and be willing to admit when we are wrong as we all stumble toward maturity.

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by mikethestrand on April 1, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 1, 2014

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2014/04/01/more-confessions-of-a-millennial-evangelical-christian/

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