Jack’s Buzz

Our first things differ from God’s first things. God does not ask us to solve hunger, reverse global climate change, or relieve political strife first. God does not first (primarily) call us to join a church, give to the poor, love our families, live within our means, or tell the neighbors about Christ’s sacrificial love. He does not ask us to start a church first. Nor does he ask us to start networks of churches as a first thing. God’s first call is to know him.

Few of us Christ-following types, however, act accordingly. Most of us–me too, many times–put our driving need for success first, no matter how one defines that elusive term (comfort, friends, marriage, fame, wealth, etc.). We put our desires in front of knowing him deeply enough that we share in his sufferings. To know Christ well and feel deep sorrow over things that make him sad is not something the American church rewards, is it? To live fully exposed before his all-encompassing presence does not seem to be valued. Or maybe it is, so long as that exposure does not reveal itself publicly, yes? In public, we put forward a good face, a stiff upper lip, a positive front inherited from our British masters, no doubt.

I wonder, do Christians talk more honestly about Jesus than we talk honestly to him? Do we reveal our priorities when we act like everything is fun and fine when in fact, many of us are very near “. . . losing all hope” (Ps 143:4). Hard to believe that a divinely inspired song writer (psalmist) could admit to losing all hope, isn’t it? But he did exactly that in the aforementioned, 3,000-year-old hymn. Hopeless? How can that be? Honest, that’s how.

He–the song writer–realized that the only path to real and lasting peace runs through the deep weeds of hopelessness. One must abandon all hope in him-or-herself and answer that first call to know God. And then, God will make himself known. If the abandon continues, the knowing grows deep, and the man or woman grows wise.

Our priorities rob us of God’s peace. His priority is immeasurable peace (Jn 14). Our choices determine our impotence in a mad world. His choice creates order out of chaos (Gen 1). Sorrow, defeat, questioning, betrayal, doubt–these are the experiences Christ uses to draw us near.

Pray a lot, love people, make disciples, watch it go.

Janet and I will spend our summer working with a new church in Austin. We appreciate your prayers. You can come help us too ;^]’

We pack a truck on May 20. If you can help us load up, starting at Noon, you are heroic! We unload in Austin on Friday, May 22–help needed of course.

I return to campus on May 26 to teach a church planting course, and then I’ll head back to Austin on May 30. I plan to spend the summer writing about God and getting the church started. 

This mission is part of a long-term plan to help students gain real-world experience during the summer. I’ve been working for over a year with Associations and State Conventions in Austin, San Francisco, Portland, and Reno. We chose Austin because of its church planter support system–it’s the best I’ve seen.

I’m talking to an NOBTS student and a recent Liberty Seminary grad about helping lead the church long-term. If they bite, it will be a multi-cultural experience, and one to which I look forward. If God is in it, he will bring us together. I’ve seen him do some surprising things to start churches, so I am not worried. 

Once we move in, we will gather a group for discipleship in someone’s home. If you’re local and interested, let me know. We’ll also find a community service project to show our neighbors some love. Your ideas are welcome there as well.

Several friends will help us over the summer. I hope you get to meet Liz, Michael (RefugeNOLA) and Erin-Leigh (Land of 1000 Hills Coffee). 

Janet accepted to UMass graduate school.

Last week, Janet was accepted to the graduate program in gerontology at the University of Massachusetts. She begins classes online this fall, and anticipates graduating in May 2010 with a Master of Science in Gerontology. This should help her take care of Jack. It will also help her to increase the kingdom by caring for the country’s aging population, which will make her even more of a blessing to others. Way to go, Janet.

Boone earned a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from Fort Lewis College this month. He is job hunting in Austin, and considering medical school.

Amanda transfers to Texas State this Fall, starring as a Junior, theater major. Meanwhile, she loves her toy store job. 

Thanks for praying!  -Jack

A short while back, my friend Joe Kennedy asked several church planters–via our Facebooks–for pointers on writing a proposal. I do not think Joe is writing a textbook. His request had a serious tone in that it was direct and to the point; something many proposals lack. 

I answered immediately that I have seen very few (none?) I really like. I was about to send Joe an answer, but realized it might be better for me to do the work I’d already promised out. Now, I have a moment–3 days later, 10:00PM, which tells you something of my lack of time management lately.

First, watch this brief talk on fund raising from a self-titled “serial investor” David Rose: Ted.com

(http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_s_rose_on_pitching_to_vcs.html)

Now integrate what Mr. Rose taught into what you are trying to do, which is raise money to support your new church, business, club, whatever. The main reason I have rarely seen a proposal I liked is that I have rarely seen one that made me want to reach for my wallet. Even if I have no money, your proposal should make me want to give you something of value. Money comes to mind first because it’s easily accessible–I’m usually sitting on some. I could also give advice, connections, or ongoing coaching–each is valuable and few are ever requested.

Here are the elements I crave. 

1. Purpose statement–what are you trying to do?
2. Vision–what is the end that you have in mind?
3. Leadership–what makes me think you can pull this off?
4. Market conditions–what’s it like where you’re going? Who is your audience? Why will they buy what you’re selling? Why is it in that package (church model)? 
5. Strategy and tactics–how will you do it?
6. WIFM (an investor’s favorite radio station): What’s in it for me? In business, investors expect a return. I expect to know that you will build something about which I care.
7. Partnerships and alliances–who else is in on this? Include coaching and assessment for the future–no coach, no money.
8. Expected outcomes and potential barriers–what’s likely to happen and what will get in the way?
9. Values–what will you measure? How is status granted at your place?
10. Funding request–how much will it cost, and when do you need it?
11. Self-sufficiency–when will you be off the dole?
12. Timeline–what happens when?

All this is nice package. No typos. Photos, charts and graphs in color. I know about graphics, and yours better be good. I also know about fluff and your proposal better have none. Say it all in less than 15 pages including the nice cover. Package it in PDF format so I can open it, and put it online because I will probably lose my copy. I do not need a hard copy, but many people do–make friends at Kinko’s.

Hope that helps.

Brad's Zero Award T

I am inspired by one of my former students. Brad is planting a church in Alabama. He wants people to know Christ more than he wants them to do or stop doing other things, like gambling. Wait, don’t hold his funding yet. Brad thinks that knowing Jesus personally is the best cure for distructive behavior. He is frustrated that so many in our tribe seem to think otherwise. He has a point.

Today, Brad writes of his frustration over a Christian newspaper that seemed to place more importance on stopping gambling than on stopping evangelistic apathy in local churches. For my (few) readers who are not crazy about evangelism, watch this - Penn Gets Bible - and shut up. There are kind ways to tell people about Christ. Before my Christian friends get all wound up, Penn also rants on legalizing marijuana, a substance from which he abstains (YouTube it). Now, before ADD gets the best of me, . . . back to Brad.

Here’s part of Brad’s blog (because I know how to cut and paste).

Today a friend showed the latest edition of …the statewide Baptist Newspaper. On the front page was an article about this huge push from the governor and other politicians, pastors and concern citizens to stop illegal gambling and prevent the spread of legal gambling in Alabama. Sounds great, and don’t get me wrong, I am not all about gambling, I’ve seen what it does to people and families to become addicted. But … it was that which was on the inside that garnered little notice, and has no where near the popular following that the anti-gambling movement does and that is this.

… a list of all the Baptism [sic] in the state by church, and association: (… that is how we Baptist count “conversions” since we believe in adult/believer’s baptism.) The first thing that caught my eye was all the zeros by the individual churches. … How is it possible for a group that exists to “Make Disciples” makes none in 365 days?
Why will people who claim to know Christ mass for political rallies but run to the hills when their pastor mentions Evangelism? …I think if witnessing got you political brownie points, there would be not a single church with zeros on a report like that.
I would really like to hear from you on this. How does this make you feel?
No matter what denomination you are.
Baptist, how does this make you feel?
Non- baptist, how does this make you feel about us as a denomination?
And especially to friends that are not yet Believers, How does this make you feel about Christians?

Disengagement Signals Abnormality

Not to be engaged is to be weird. You do not want to be weird do you? You do not want to deny the image of God any more than I do.

Staying with Acts, Luke outlines a surprisingly unsophisticated, ongoing training regimen. He tells his readers that the early church met together to eat a meal, pray, and hear the apostles’ teaching (Ac 2:42). We do not know line-by-line the precise content of the apostles’ teaching, but we know that it results in apostolic engagement. The Christians consistently engage non-Christians with the Gospel.

Moreover, there is no sense that the engagement is in any way obnoxious or overbearing, for they enjoyed “favor with all the people” (Ac 2:47). Their engagement must have been engaging—they must have been kind. We know that the early Christians were heavily engaged in reducing poverty and healing the sick, often miraculously. Healing the sick and feeding the poor tend to earn the favor of one’s neighbors.

Even after the religious oppressors persecuted the Christians, the pattern continued in every town to which they dispersed. Apostolic engagement led to healing and freedom from demonic torment. Wherever they went, Christians normally engaged people with kindness and the Gospel of Jesus followed immediately.

At the beginning of this exercise, we noticed that most people asked about engagement think of different things, but do they really? I think not—not at the core of what we are all saying—because it is in our human DNA to engage people so that we might become related to them. The average person thinks of engagement as something that comes before the wedding. People engage, and then they become related. Evangelists think about trained witnesses engaging others with the Gospel. They witness to become related as brothers and sisters in Christ. Church planters do the work of the evangelist, and then add to that the relatedness that comes from gathering for worship and growing in discipleship. We all engage others because all want so badly to have relationships. We want those relationships because God designs us to need them.

To desire to remain disengaged from others is a sign that something is wrong. For a Christ-follower not to desire to engage and relate to others signals a malady. Something is wrong. Dare I say that a disengaged Christian is a hurting Christian? A Christian not engaging people who wander in darkness, lost without Christ, is an ill Christian. He or she has something wrong. The DNA wires them to engage, but the wiring broke, and we represent the Physician. Rather than sit broken, hurting Christians in classrooms, we might need to offer them healing and deliverance from their malady. If I have a brother or sister in Christ who disengages others (or has become habitually disengaged from others), a sickness holds him or her captive. Engagement helps sick Christians and sick non-Christians get well.

Perhaps you can think of other ways to engage people for Christ. The GPS web site offers ideas. Each of the four is worth exploring.

First, imagine trained Christ-followers effectively sharing the gospel as they go.[1] The biblical texts that we examined above demonstrate little about the training program of the early church. Perhaps they had no program, at least in the sense of the systematically organized modules that we see today. Still, the evidence indicates that believers consistently engaged non-believers, verbally witnessed their experiences regarding the resurrected Christ, and that many people, both Jews and Gentiles, put their faith in Christ as a result. The pattern of engagement is so consistent that one can only conclude that elder believers trained their younger brothers and sisters to engage people and tell them about Jesus. Simply stated, mature believers took new believers along as they engaged their communities. Do that.

Second, imagine starting small groups to intentionally present the gospel to lost people. Small discipleship groups form the heart of first century Christian engagement. Evidence suggests that the believers purposely chose small, mobile groups as their church model. A good exercise might include examining whether a person can join a small discipleship group without first committing himself or herself to Christ. Can one follow Christ without having made a commitment to him as Savior? Can a person be a disciple, in the sense that the word means follower, with the intention of merely investigating Christ? I want to say yes based on Christ’s many invitations to test his teaching and see if it is from God (Jn 7:16-17).

If a believing group accepts nonbelievers in their gathering (with the intention of witnessing to them at the appropriate time), they will engage dozens of people who will later commit their lives to Christ. The small, discipleship group method for starting churches may hold the most promise for growing Christ’s kingdom in the West. The obvious implication is that we need to start more discipleship groups faster. Waiting to send people out to start new groups until they complete training is like not planting on a windy day (Ec 11:4). Bad idea. On one hand, the Spirit can correct, and on the other hand, no one says that leaders cannot hold group starters accountable for their teaching. For that matter, where does the Scripture say that every group needs a teacher? It doesn’t; stop making excuses and start something.

Third, imagine starting new churches. All of us see the data that newer churches tend to engage and reach more people for Christ faster than even ten-year-old churches. Yet, the latest statistics indicate that only three percent of established SBC churches sponsor new works.[2] We cannot demand $250,000 in the bank or full-time pastoral staff to start a church when the apostles had none of that. Start discipleship groups with leaders who have jobs, and let them become churches. Start them.

Fourth, imagine believers living with a passion for lost people that comes out of the overflow of an intimate walk with God. The first century church spent enormous amounts of time in prayer, worship, engaging, witnessing, and running. They spent no time in seminary. Passion to see lost people come to Christ does not come from academic papers, books, sermons, or wishing. Passion for the things of God comes from the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit fills any believer who makes the time to be filled. Walking with Christ takes time, and God offers no substitute method. Spend time with God and look around to see what he is doing. Stop wasting time and resources on things God is not rewarding.

None of us wants to live unfulfilled, unproductive lives. We know that we will have a conversation with Jesus someday, and that he will ask us to make an account of what we produced with what he gave us (Mt 25:14-46, Ro 14:12, Heb 4:13). We all want a pleasant conversation. It seems important, therefore, that disciples creatively engage others.

God made us to engage. Jesus and the early church modeled engagement. We can simply act accordingly and creatively. I recently read that the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, calls for a complete reorganization of the medium (just when you learned to use the current iteration, yes?). He wants a new structure to engage the needs of a new generation.[3] Perhaps we should try to catch up to the secular culture’s engaging attitude.

Apostolic Activity Imitates Divine Engagement

Observing the lives of the apostles, one cannot help but think that Christian engagement is normal. Jesus said that his followers would do greater things than he did (Jn 14:12). He did some amazing things. Do you think he might have been mistaken? Misquoted? Either he was mistaken, or there was more than surface value to his words. I do not think he was mistaken or misquoted. I think he was dead on—that he knew exactly what he was saying.

Is it possible that Jesus was telling us that we engage people without having the ability to feed them on nothing, heal their diseases without medicine, or raise the dead? Yes, I realize that we can find many examples of regular Christians seeing miracles, but miracles are not the norm. None of us can think of miraculous outpourings of God’s power as the normal way things go, can we? For Jesus, the shock of the miraculous was normal, for us, it is not, and I wonder if that was his meaning when he said we would do greater things. We will engage people by the power of the Spirit without the shock factor. It is just a thought, and not meant to get you off track. When did you last observe Christ move powerfully in someone’s life without anything resembling a sign or wonder? Most of my experiences with changed lives (mine or others’) seem to occur under almost mundane circumstances. The Spirit moves quietly most of the time; do you agree?

In the lives of the apostles, we see far fewer miracles preceding engagement than we see in Christ’s life. Peter has the healing touch to be sure. Paul raises a dead guy—not something one sees very often unless there are paddles and massive amounts of electricity involved. The Bible tells readers that many signs and wonders accompanied the work of the apostles in the early church. The early church, however, saw nowhere near the number of miracles per capita as those portrayed in Jesus’ life.

What we see modeled by early Christians is not so much the miraculous as it is the simple, consistent, and frequent engagement of others. The early church did not win their neighbors as much by miracles as they did by doing good works. In this way, they imitated Jesus as he “went about doing good” (Ac 10:38). They enjoyed the favor of all the people, and their favor diminished only after religious oppressors came after them for teaching Jesus as the Way (Ac 2:47, 8:1-3).

Think about Pentecost again, but this time as an example of God shocking nonbelievers with something unusual followed by believers explaining what was happening. The amazing episode involved relatively simple engagement by people responding to God’s complex signs and wonders. The Holy Spirit caused people to speak in unknown languages (shocking complexity). Peter followed up with a rather simplistic sermon explaining what was happening (engagement). How was he so effective? He seems simply to answer their immediate need. They needed to know what the fire, wind, and languages were about. God caused their need, and Peter responded.

Is it possible that our engagement of people with the Gospel most easily follows their needs? Is it possible that God drives their needs along by using normal events that happen to everyone like loss of love, economic trials, or death of a friend to open them to the Gospel? Look at the text.

In Acts, chapter two, the church grows through kindness of members toward one another. The entire city notices that faith in Christ makes people treat their neighbors better.

In Acts three, Peter and John lead a man to health and to Jesus—the man’s poverty and disability opened him to their ministry. Granted, the story includes a miracle. The name of Jesus heals the man. God provides a miracle; the disciples explain it with the Gospel.

Chapter four finds the Jewish rulers threatening the disciples. The church prays for boldness. The Holy Spirit shakes the place and fills the believers (shock). As a result, the church shares everything to the point that they eradicate poverty (engaging and shocking?). They demonstrate kindness and the group grows.

Annanias and Sapphira begin chapter five by lying about a financial gift to the new church apparently trying to elevate their status. God shocks the believers by killing them. Evidently, the fear of the Lord is something the new church (and city) needs to remember. Later in the chapter, the religious authorities jail the apostles, the Spirit frees them (shock), and they respond by teaching Christ to people in the courtyard (engagement).

Acts six and seven begin with an account of how the early church administrates their affairs followed by the arrest of Stephen, his speech to the priests, and his stoning at their hands. Following Stephen’s shocking death, chapter eight recounts persecution of the church, Saul becomes the religious leaders’ chief hit man, and the church runs. No doubt, the new disciples felt a sense of shock at their predicament—one day they find favor with everyone and the next they are ripped from their homes, jailed, and scattered. One could hardly blame them for abandoning the faith, but they use their dispersion as a chance to engage people with the Gospel.

Christ shocks Saul into faith in chapter nine by knocking him to the ground and blinding him. Paul responds by becoming Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles (engagement), and the other disciples respond by welcoming him (further engagement).

In chapter ten, Cornelius and Peter see visions from heaven (shock) and they respond by engaging one another and the Gentiles with the Gospel. This pattern repeats again and again throughout the New Testament.

Only in chapter seventeen do we find a passage that seems to break the pattern. Paul engages the philosophers at Athens, but no shocking miracles precede or follow his engagement. In fact, the most shocking thing we read is of Paul telling the philosophers that a resurrection from death occurred. The philosophers found it shocking that an intelligent man such as Paul believed such an illogical story. Evidently, however, Paul’s worldview does not offend all of the intellectual elite; the story closes with several people curious and a few converted to Christianity.

On Mars Hill, God does not shock anyone with anything more than Paul’s brilliant philosophical argument. The story reflects engagement more in tune with the kind we see in our North American context than the rest of Acts. Someone may wonder if Paul was unsuccessful in Athens or even if we should avoid the intellectual elite because so little seems to happen on the Mars Hill mission. The Bible, however, does not say anything to lead us away from intellectual engagement. Perhaps the story is included in the inspired text because while it was abnormal for First Century Greece (or Twenty-first Century Africa), it is quite normal for Twenty-first Century North America. The principle of engaging people on a level they understand holds in Mars Hill, Athens as well as College Park, USA.

At the end of the day, one can only conclude that consistent engagement of people in the name of Christ defined the early Christian community. Shocking signs and wonders, performed by the Holy Spirit through apostolic workers, intertwine most of their engagements. Some engagements, however, did not include miracles. Notable exceptions occur that make engagement today not at all unusual or even unpredictable. Philip’s engagement of the Treasurer of Ethiopia is not that different from the encounters that many of us experience (Ac 8). Paul’s intellectual conversation with Athenian philosophers happens daily in classrooms, boardrooms, and break rooms across North America.

What we still must deal with is the underlying principle—the thing that translates biblical incidents into contemporary, North American life. What do we do with these stories? We conclude that for the Christian, normality means engaging others to spread the Gospel, and abnormality means disengagement. One cannot conclude otherwise.

The Holy Spirit Facilitates Engagement

Jesus engages people by connecting his eternal, Holy Spirit to their limited spiritual nature. The Holy Spirit is God personally engaging us. He helps, comforts, reveals truth, and crosses barriers (Jn 14:17, 26).

John records Jesus breathing on the apostles, telling them to receive his Spirit as though he were something they could refuse. Perhaps he is. Paul tells believers not to quench the Spirit (1Th 5:19).

At Pentecost, we observe the Spirit coming in power as fulfillment of Christ’s promise to engage humanity with his Spirit. The Spirit engages all the disciples first, and the men and women in the city next. He overwhelms their senses with the sound of rushing wind and the appearance of fire from the air. He overcomes their cultural moorings by breaking the language barrier (Ac 2:2-12).

The text makes it clear that the miraculous gift of instantly speaking a foreign language is under the Spirit’s power and direction. Moreover, the words spoken are the Gospel. The Spirit gave believers the gift of languages to enable them to engage nonbelievers with the Gospel in a way that invited people to listen. Tongues of fire, rushing wind, foreign languages; I would think one’s response to be akin to shock. Would you not wonder what was going on?

Throughout Acts, whenever God engages humans, he uses powerful events that run against most peoples’ view of how things work. Pentecost offers the prime example. Tongues of fire from the air—was anyone expecting that? I think I might want to run away from that. Shocking, redefinitions of reality are nothing new for God. Nor is it new for God to invite his children to follow a miraculous sign with an engaging explanation to people who need to believe in his power.

God troubled a Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph explained the meaning (Gen 41:1-36). God shocked another Pharaoh with all manner of plagues, and Moses explained (Ex 7-12). God shocked the people of Nineveh when a fish tossed up a man, and Jonah read the news from God (Jnh 2:10-3:3).

Jesus was the most shocking man who ever lived. He explained the reality of a new day, the good news day of the Lord’s favor (Lk 4:19). He gave dignity to the poor. He fed hungry crowds with fish and chips from air and baskets (Mt 14:21, 15:38). He risked his life to confront religious and political oppressors. He completed the Law, turning it from a punitive list into marks of grace (Lk 24:44, Col 2). He healed people of fevers, skin diseases, crumpled legs, blind eyes, deaf ears, and tormenting demons. He walked on water. He freed dead people from the final captivity. Then (as if all that were not enough), he took a ride with death and came out the winner. He walked through walls, offered peace that lasts, and lifted off to heaven. His final instruction to those watching was to tell others about what he did—to be his witness (Ac 1:8). With those experiences, how could they not be engaging?

One might easily interpret Christ’s statement as an instruction for us to engage others with the Good News when their lives do not make sense. Witnesses engage the poor with the riches of heaven, a slice of bread, a coat, and maybe a job. Witnesses offer the crowds something beyond a free show. Witnesses risk their status to push back on bullying oppressors whether political or religious. Have you done any of these things recently? Witnesses offer grace, healing, deliverance now, and the hope of heaven for tomorrow.

God’s Spirit engages people by shocking them. He leaves it to us—his witnesses—to explain what just happened.