Not Like Paul

        Today while I was driving back from Kenwood with Michael Clary, we were discussing missiology and I made a shocking discovery. I am now willing to say that we cannot derive our full missiology from the life of the apostle Paul. To some this may sound mildly heretical but it seems as I entertain a more covenantal ecclesiology, I must confront a new missiology with an optimistic trajectory in mind. All this is to say that the epistles do not tell us everything about missions explicitly. There are implications of Paul’s behavior that lead me to believe in a particular trajectory, as in the christocentic nature of his preaching but do not insist on a methodology. We are in a different context amid different people, and living in different cities.

            My shocking discovery was that a missiology that takes as its paradigm the New Testament era is not the missiology we must employ today. In a post-evangelical landscape we have seen the rise and fall of Christendom, and this worldwide phenomenon has affected the secular world in such a way that it will never be the same again. We must employ new missiological concepts that derive their meaning from scripture, but do not attempt to mimic or copy those of St. Paul. Paul’s missiology was specifically meant for Philippi, Rome, and Ephesus. To use a pre-Christendom missiology in post-evangelical North America is error. This is yet again another nail in the coffin of those who would seek to dogmatically return to the practices of the New Testament era.

            Using the entire scope of the Old and New Testaments, it is a congregation’s imperative to develop a new particular missiology for their individual context in terms of geography, history, race, etc.

Skip church and Be The Church

Skip church and Be The Church

            “In a clever experiment published in 1973, John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson found that seminary students on their way to take part in an experiment often walked right past a man slumped over and groaning in a doorway. Some of the subjects, ironically, had been asked to give a talk on the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, but they were no more likely to stop and help than others if they thought they were late. And no particular style of religiosity was related to the likelihood of helping the victim.”

This research should sicken us as Christians. Do I care more about my precious education than I do about the souls of the homeless? Do I care more about appointments and my job security than I do about the biblical imperative to care for the poor? Do I care so much about stability, church membership, and ascent to creed that my time would be lost on an ignorant drunkard? Be very careful how you walk. We should be more afraid of passing by our savior unaware than we are of the devil who roams about the city. The wicked one may destroy our body but The Father can destroy our souls in Hell’s heat. My faith is borne of the curiosity that one day if Christ wills it I will peer into a drunkards eyes and commune with my savior. He commanded us to wash feet. Skip church if it forces you to spend Sunday morning actively being The Church. What man can sit under the unfettered preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments and not be gripped by conviction? What man can go about Sunday after Sunday sitting in our houses of worship and not weep for his unrepentant heart? What man can hear the Bible preached and not dance for joy as a prodigal that has now returned home? A Christian may spend days or even years this way but the will of the Father is never to remain in this unhealthy lethargy. Quit going to church and start living as a Christian! The worst sound in all the earth is a hymn sung by dead unrepentant sinners. Rise up men of God! Repent and serve the King of Kings by living as if you were dead. When we smell of cheap bourbon, hookers and death maybe then Sunday morning worship will mean something as we praise our Savior.

Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
To serve the King of kings.

Rise up, O men of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.

Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!

Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where His feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up, O men of God!

Fountain Square Leonard

Tonight Michael Clary and I went out for coffee on fountain square. We parked next to the Vine Street Starbucks and (like two seriously white guys) walked to fountain square to sit, watch the baseball game, chat theology, and drink coffee in 90+ degree weather. Both of us were discussing our take on the need for African American elders in a city-church. We were lamenting the fact that our spheres of influence did not include any theologically astute African Americans who could plant a church. Michael saw a man he had met earlier across the square and ran to get him. We struck up a conversation with a homeless man named Leonard who happened to be a sober, clean cut, articulate, homeless man. He was wearing a clean button down dress shirt with a pack of cigarettes stuffed in the front pocket and apart from his dazed look; he seemed to be all together. We talked for about an hour and then got him some food and housing at our newly undisclosed housing for homeless people we have a good feeling about. We call it the Cincinnati NUHFHPWHAGFA (catchy isn’t it). We both have reservations about this guy, but it seems to me that God answered a prayer for both of us tonight. Please pray us as we venture out into the city to share our faith.  Please also thank God that he has brought a new friend to Cincinnati!

Regulative Necessities In Our Worship

  A crisis of faith turns from crisis to research. Research often times retreats from the actual to the mystical and from the magnanimous to the maniacal. Our difficulty reckoning the mystical nature of the Triune God with the pragmatic necessities of the everyday becomes greater than an average saint can bear. How can man contemplate the depths of God’s immutable attributes when there are babies screaming in the background, taxes to be paid, and a wife that needs attention? Is it possible to both engage the culture with relevant and practical material yet remain honest to the orthodox and mystical moorings of historic Christianity?

            It seems that this is the preoccupation of many if not all of my friends seeking to find their way in this ambient culture. It is for this reason that I found myself this morning in an Eastern Orthodox Church as a spectator and fellow saint. In recent years I have stumbled upon friends (and at times ventured this way myself) who jaunt off in search of the Historical Church. You might have read or remember Albert Schweitzer running this way and that to no avail on pilgrimage to find the Historical Jesus. It seems that my generation has been enticed by German theology to abandon the quest for the Historical Jesus and embark on another quest; one to find the historical Church. I met up with just one of these friends this morning who (for a time) it seems has been drawn in by the beauty, historicity and mystery of Eastern Orthodoxy. Who wouldn’t be? I will forego the description of what happened there and let it suffice to say that what I witnessed was more biblical and Christ centered than most of our cities Mega churches. This is the crisis of our day. When protestant churches failed to subscribe to the regulative principle of worship issued in the 17^th century we were left vulnerable to the same Roman error we fought to correct. For the last two centuries we have been continuing to allow the entropy of sin to undo the great work of revival our reformers paid for in blood. This is why the emerging generations having never been trained in ecclesiology are running after anything that feels and looks authentic and old.

            The Eastern Orthodox Church is arguably the oldest Christian expression being practiced today. The liturgy used in many of their churches is from 200AD penned and implemented by St. John of Chrysostom. In no way can we take these facts lightly. Many of their adherents and priests are pious and humble saints who seek to worship Christ. In contrast at a number of the local Mega churches in our city (and for that fact at many of the new contemporary churches) the liturgy was penned 5 years ago by a church consultant , and the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross, sacred architecture, the Lord’s supper, creeds, the Bible, and precise theological distinctives have been abandoned. If this is the logical outcome of Protestantism abandoning the extra biblical modes of worship advocated by the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox, then we will pay grievously for our error on the Day of Judgment.  I contend however that this is not the logical outcome of Protestantism, but rather this new watered down religion is of the same man made ilk that brought us fourteenth century Roman Catholicism. Why do men run after the Historical Church? Why are men researching and pining after these traditions that have been forsaken? Within the heart of the believer there is a groaning too deep for human words that the Holy Spirit births out of a need to worship God the right way. Perhaps this parable will suffice to explain our condition.

            A thirsty woman comes to the well of the contemporary church and drinks a Coca         Cola Christianity; she drinks and drinks and drinks only to find herself dehydrated     by their caffeine and nervous from the high-fructose-corn-syrup. She is still    thirsty. In a last ditch effort she sees a menu that offers the coffee and tea of       sophisticated Orthodoxy or maybe the beer of Roman Catholicism, and she begins to drink and become filled. Over time the name Jesus, the image of Mary, and the             pride of History intoxicate her to the point of illness. What this woman needs in not cola, tea, or beer but the bread of life and the wine that bubbles up to living          water.

            The Reformers and Puritans knew that Rome would never be that Living water as long as it was cut or diluted by the traditions of men. They knew that the Anabaptists could never create new traditions apart from scripture. They knew that if we are to truly be spiritual it will not be found in the trappings of mannish pomp and ritual but in the essential nature of scriptural disciplined worship. In this way we will avoid both errors that of popery, and that of pragmatism. In this way we can with grace and mercy love our friends into the truth, and help them avoid the trappings of error. The regulative principle of worship is a much forsaken dogma that can and will lead Christ’s true church out of the maze of American revivalism, and prevent us from repeating the errors of Eastern Orthodoxy. As our friends abandon the seeker churches, in search of something mystical and old let us have faith that worship advocated in the scriptures alone will yield to them the Way the Truth and The Life.

Attempts at Puritanism in my reading of John Owen book 6

       Whereupon reading these words in John Owen book six “there is a certain infallible connection and coherence between true mortification and eternal life”, I was struck by the truest sense of joy. I have found that the truest sense of joy finds its wellspring from the depths of assurance, and this assurance is that of Christ’s mark upon my life. Fear of failure and the uneasy melancholy of self pity flee when confronted by the power of assurance. They will know we are Christians by our love, and we will know we are Christians by the mark that mortification leaves upon our shallow and sin sick lives. With each passing day I am more certain and more hopeless apart from the cross of Christ. I find the pervasiveness of sin to be second only to the outworking of His grace and His mercy driving evil from their various encampments in my heart. Pain and duress are the truest works of joy and life. If I am being persecuted, if I am in anguish over sin, if I am being chastened, if I am tempted, and if my flesh is thoroughly being mortified I can be assured that my salvation has been purchased on Calvary’s tree, and His blood has been spilt on my behalf. If my world collapses around me, if the sky falls, and if not unlike Job I am the object of Satan’s scorn, I must be filled with delight unspeakable because these are sure signs of mortification.

            I have come to realize that I am a deplorable Christian. I am simply not holy enough, intelligent enough, spiritual enough, simple enough, loving enough, green enough, liberal enough, conservative enough, gentle enough, biblical enough or quiet enough. My stability is questionable. There is no room to boast save in the cross of Christ for my life is a pitiful testimony to the grandeur present in the sacrificial work of Calvary. This is also further cause for joy. In my failings I find joy because it is in them that the most unashamed and blatant testimony to the authenticity of the παράκλητος is evident. The Comforter, The One who consoles, or The Advocate, comes to plead my case and give assurance. The Holy Spirit reminds my weakened will that He is faithful to all generations. He is ever faithful even to the back-slider. Yes even to one such as me. In this way He chastens those whom He loves to such a severe degree that we can know with epistemic certainty that He is near. I can give no room to doubt for my life is testimony to the corrective and disciplinary reality interwoven in the providential tides of my faith.

            Sources and reasons for anxiety are directly correlated to the amplitude of our faith insofar as God portions each to those in relation to their maturity. When we are in pursuit of maturity or when we are facing the precipice of human limit and are forced beyond our current maturity the amplitude of duress mounts accordingly. Christ either disciplines us directly or hands us over to Satan to be purified. This is truly the pilgrim’s progress toward the face of God. Once a particular thread of Christian development has been explored to its fullest degree we are again pressed by the weightiness of world affairs and our own limitedness. In the early watches of the morning those of us left un-plagued by slothfulness are oftentimes riddled with false ponderings. They creep in as The Evil One whispers depravity back into our cleansed minds. When the morning has turned into noontime we have entered The Kingdom of Darkness and our flesh wanes beneath the heaviness of interaction. The toil of work has left us fettered to the impressions and whims of a sinful world system. In the darkness of night all manner of sinful predilection and deleterious defect of man come out to question “Who is this king of Glory”? We must in this flood of wickedness not retreat into the thoughts and intentions of man but leap into the under girding promises of God to His people. Assurance is the wellspring of joy unspeakable. In this way we shall be anxious for nothing because He will sustain us through His chastening. What is more, we should not begrudgingly endure this duress out of simple duty but in thankfulness of heart pray our supplications so as to learn the joy of trusting The Author and Sustainer of our faith.

            Let us pray in the time of trial for assurance in the testing, and in the testing, endurance, and in the endurance hope, and in that hope may we be glad in Jesus.