Hearing

I hunger lately to create, to make something new.

The creation is cursed to frustration, and so what man can do must be temporary, must carry within it decay.

Inevitable decay, which all men must contend with in what they do, even those who labor for the Lord must know that what they work at will not satisfy them, cannot satisfy them.

These are old lessons which must be heard again.

Hear them, hear them, the power of the Word in them, that calling power.

Ministry Method Analysis

Guiding principle: "We do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (II Corinthians 4:1)

Ministry Method: Advertise your event as a "campus-wide worship night." Invite all the campus ministries to participate in it. Then, once they are there, invite them all to join your group.

Verdict: This is deceptive. Worse, it is deceptive towards other believers. Actually, I am not sure if it is worse to deceive believers, but it certainly is a good way of causing disunity in the body.

This used to happen to some extent through a ministry at the University of Arizona. I experienced this tonight. I do not understand this. At all. Why? What kingdom work is being done?

The ministry in question probably spent a fortune on thousands of fliers. In the weeks leading up to the event there were fliers everywhere on campus! And they were glossy and attractive as well. But there are huge problems with the whole event.

1. Confusion of audience. These fliers were passed out indiscriminately to all people. But if someone came who wasn't a Christian, they would have immediately been weirded out by the eerie eyes-closed singing, and confused by a sermon filled with popular Christian jargon. Were they trying to attract nonbelievers? If so, why create a program so inaccessible? If not, then why spend thousands of dollars giving them fliers for it?

2. Uncertain aims. Although there is certain merit in an event which seeks to unite all Christian students in praise and worship, they nullified this by advertising for one specific ministry. Yet the event was not particular enough either to give the students any sense of why they should go to that specific ministry.

3. Awareness of unmet needs. There is no shortage of opportunities for Christian students to sing songs together and listen to messages. Many Christian students listen to podcasts of popular preachers all the time. All of the students there were a part of some fellowship, and many of them probably a part of several! This is not what the campus needs!

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I have been thinking a lot lately about formulating ministry from first principles. What does this mean? It means to minister in such a way as to reveal what you believe about God's character. It means to vigorously line up the manner of your ministry with what the Word says about it.

This is difficult because it is often not very attractive to my ego. What is attractive is having a large crowd of people come to my events, to have them listen carefully to my sermons while taking notes, and have them rave about my brilliant speaking and insightful analysis. It would be easy to try and create a situation in which I can do all these things (although even at the height of my natural oratorical giftings, I wouldn't excite a crowd like more naturally gifted speakers). I could, for example, come up with a clever hook for an event, reserve the right room, promote the heck out of it, etc. I may be able to convince a fair number of people to come.

Note that I am not implying that having big events and inviting lots of people to come to them are inherently bad ministry techniques. I am thinking more about myself as I start a new ministry.

For me to minister from first principles is for me to allow God to move as I share the Word with others. It is to trust that deep investment in a few is worthwhile. It is to trust that it is the Word that should attract people, and that when I share the Word with others, I do not need any other hook. It is to be content with a faithful ministry.

Ministry is people. It is for those I interact with. It is not for me. I have to be constantly reminding myself of this. My goal is to bless and cause growth in the lives of individuals, to be the means through which God causes REAL spiritual growth in the lives of precious individuals with faces and names and stories. Within this sphere may come the larger group speaking opportunities, but always, always it is me and Israel, me and Jon, me and Cavin, me and Alexi, me and Jaime, me and Ben, and there present with us the power of God, his Holy Spirit at work going among us as we read the word, as we pray, as I teach and encourage and correct.

This is my work, and the large group helps to solidify a community within which this work can happen. That is why I am persevering in it. But the heart, the purpose, the joy and struggle, all these must be real, felt, face to face, a man speaking to a man. This is ministry.

Blog Re-instated

In an announcement which I'm sure will delight at least three of you, I am restarting my "Puritan Reader" blog (puritanreader.blogspot.com).

The reason is that I am re-reading John Owen's Commentary on Hebrews, and I thought it would be a good discipline to exhaustively update my notes online. Plus, Don recommended that I work on a project during this year...he said I might find myself with some extra time and I should try and use it well.

I am sure those of you who want to read this amazing work but don't have the time or inclination to plow through five volumes of anachronisms and confusing syntax will be happy to read my "easy-to-read" version.

Things I do not understand

1. People who purchase expensive dogs from pet stores rather than rescue dogs for free from the pound.

2. Excessive time spent playing video games

3. Churches with American flags

4. Why anyone would ever take Glenn Beck seriously

5. Farmville

6. Buying expensive cars

7. Weird diets/obsession with organic food

8. Why people think alternative medicine is more effective than medicine based on extensive laboratory testing and vigorous regulatory screening

9. Why people don't try new things

This Article Makes Me Want to Punch Myself in the Face

Here is the point when American Christianity disappeared into a sea of irrelevance.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read. Fads! A fair of vanities, a foolish emptiness. Where is prayer? Where is holiness? Where is repentance?

There is nothing here but vanity, vanity, vanity. Relevance! Ridiculous. That we would want such a thing, when men are dying.

I am cannot believe that these things are happening, while the world is dying, that there is fog and smoke and fashion and caring and production, amidst a world that hates God! Fools! Do you think you will convert a man with anything less than the power of the Holy Spirit at work in his Word? Do you think that "proving" to him that you care about the same things he cares about will work? And how can you care about the same things as men who hate God?

How?

Noah, Preacher of Righteousness

Word of God, speak...

The salvation of the Lord is near those who fear him

I heard Mike Hildebrand speak once on the topic of fear of the Lord. He asked the audience, what does it mean to fear the Lord? Then he answered his own question. It means "to fear the Lord." These are words right? Words we know the definition of. To fear the Lord is to fear the Lord. To be afraid of him. To be terrified of him.

The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, 'I am trembling with fear.'

Poor understanding of Scripture hinders us here, since we read John's epistle and note that there is "No fear in love." If that is so, how can the fear of the Lord be compatible with the God of love? Yet David himself connects them.

With you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared

Error in the Scriptures? No. There is no error in the Scriptures. The error is in our understanding.

You have not come to the mountain that can be touched, and is burning with fire.

But first you must go to that mountain. First, you must tremble before it. First, you must hear the voice of God speak forth from it.

Blessed are those who mourn

Have you mourned at your sin? Have you come to God as a sick man to be healed? God's salvation is for those who fear him, his love is revealed in the midst of his justice, it is the revelation of his justice that brings us near to him, to the place where "righteousness and peace kiss." Fear God! For your fear will bring you to him. Then in your trembling you will meet your refuge, the one who never let a bruised reed break.

What of the campus? This is my field after all.

There I must be like Noah, a preacher of righteousness. For men will never come unless they are broken. Then, only then, may I offer as a physician of souls the psychic of life, the holy remedy. This is the need of the generation.

On Holy Water

Some mystical incantation, some imaginary pseudo pagan nonsense, some exploitation of common trust. Water! Nothing more! Words spoken over it in a dead language, and it acquires some secret holiness to be imparted? Such foolishness! Such damnable (I do not employ that word improperly) presumption! Remember Aaron's sons before you imagine that you can impart grace through a made-up ceremony never mentioned in the Word of God!

The reason I mention this is I attended (by requirement) a "multi-faith blessing" for the new student center. The Roman Catholic priest said some vaguely universalistic prayer and then sprinkled holy water every which way. It was ridiculous.

Holy water! I can't believe that stuff exists in a religion which claims to submit to the true God.

Scenes from the university

Notions of multiculturalism and the respect we have for other faiths result in a Hindu man at a formerly Methodist university giving speeches to gay Roman Catholic students.

If you wonder at how men can be content within the strictures of non-Western societies, remember that we have an ahistorical lack of integration. The notion of belonging within a community, the subsuming of the self in the flow, the patterns, the larger whole of a body. The thought of converting because your leader converted, or believing something because your leader believes it, that the positions of the community contain with them a special significance that require an inevitable response, all these are foreign to us.

Is this not known? There is literature on it.

Understand who you are and the place you live! The time in which you live! Place yourself. I am under these influences too. What I want, this fullness, every man his own god, yes we all want this, it is the freedom which science and prosperity purchased for us.

They say that when the new way was opened for us through the curtain (this, remember, his body) that also the curtain that hid the false gods was destroyed, their mystical power broken. This was the power at work in those integrated places.

The university celebrates freedom from these gods.

It is a type of freedom.

It is nothing.

It is what Psalmist once said, that one day the kings of the earth would take their stand, that the rulers of the nations would gather against the Lord and against his anointed one. "Let us throw off their chains!" It is rebellion. But now all men are kings, each submitting to himself alone. They are united only in their refusal to bow before the one who made all things.

Let us pray together, they say. Even some supposed followers of the true God join with them, lowering what they worship to another object to be collected under the reign of self. They pray to nothing, mantras. No one hears.

Together they celebrate their imaginary religion, while outside the world is broken. Together they pray to their imaginary gods, while outside all defile themselves in ignorance.

James said, not many of you should be teachers. There is one who will judge.