Steve Lewis put out a “Challenge to Seattle Hipsters” to do something meaningful, which is a very good challenge to make to hipsters who are often way too deep into lattes and relationship building with other hipsters. Steve challenged them (and me) to buy a rice cooker for a Burmese refugee. I bit and I bought.
I am not a Seattle hipster. I’m not a New Orleans hipster either. I might be considered a hipster at a Baptist seminary faculty meeting, which is rather disturbing, is it not? I’d rather be called the “subversive element.”
To the point, I quote my friend Steve:
. . . a few months ago, everyone in the hip, flavor of the month activist issue club both here in Seattle, and around North America got all up in arms over the violence in Burma/Myanmar. It did get bad there, no question. The violence by the government against Buddhist monks got the most airplay in Western media. It’s good that we see this stuff. But it’s a far cry better when you can actively do something positive to help.
. . . I’ve got a prime opportunity for you to get personally involved – a chance to put up or shut up as it were. Here’s the deal. There are many refugees from Burma/Myanmar arriving in the Seattle area right now. In many cases, they’re arriving with literally nothing but the clothes they’re wearing.
A local pastor in the collective of churches I work with is reaching out to these people and trying to help. He needs help. They need everything from a bus or vans to microwave ovens and rice cookers. So what say you? . . . If you’re interested in helping [click]
. . . this call for help goes beyond just those who were hipster protest-y types. These folks could use all the help they can get right now.
After I read his post, I asked Steve if they were taking the Gospel along with the rice cookers. They are. So, I bought a rice cooker. I’ll never see it, never know its color, feel its buttons, plug it in, or taste its Jasmine grains. I do not care in the least. I send it along joyfully and with a prayer: Father, send your Holy Spirit with this rice cooker. Use it to make someone happy. Let every grain of rice it cooks be a seed for the Gospel. Start a movement among the Burmese people. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I hear a lot of speeches in church gatherings, but not too many sermons. Many opinions, but not many words from God. I asked my spiritual warfare class if their worship gatherings tend to center on “a sermon or a good talk.” One of my brighter students asked what’s wrong with a good talk?
Good question. I see several problems. If people come to a church gathering expecting a word from God (sermon) and get a word from human (good talk), at least two bad things happen.
First, people forget how to tell the difference between humanist meandering and God’s word. We of flesh and bone become comfortable with humanistic entertainment in place of Christ-centered motivation. We see this everywhere in North America as we’ve become a people in love with consumption and ear tickling.
Second, people who anticipate hearing God’s word grow very tired of speakers who call themselves preachers but do not deliver. No likes broken promises. Who knows how many people skip church because when they went they heard no God-sized messages? How many Christians want to hear the day’s word on what to do but find themselves disappointed?
My wife and I travel to many churches and find ourselves numb over the number of preachers who cannot preach. We would probably be happier had we heard a few good talks, but most if it was plain oatmeal. Hardly the stuff to make churches want to stand against the schemes of the devil!
Perhaps it’s time that North American church gatherings repented of soft-sell entertainment and regurgitated motivational blather. If we want holy results to fight the unholy enemy, we might use the tools God gave us. We might gather with less focus on looking good and more prayer for lost souls, by name, out loud, in public. We might pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Africa, China, India, and the Middle East. We might jettison the 30-second arrow-to-heaven prayer and really pray together, on Sunday, when everybody’s there.
We might insist the music be less “special” and more worshipful. Less “sacred tradition” and more in a language we can understand.
We might forego the “fake shake” and let fellowship happen more naturally at another time. People do not make friends with a greeting and a greeting–despite its warm intentions–ALWAYS breaks any sense of worshipful momentum.
Most of all, we might insist that preachers preach a sermon. Stop rewarding them if they don’t, and start following them if they do. Stop tolerating people who criticize biblical preaching, put them out! Stop giving status to people who unfairly criticize, build factions, or distract other listeners.
I am NOT advocating long, harsh angry sermonizing. Lord, spare us from mean, long-winded pulpiteers. The best sermons I hear–the ones that offer hope and make me want to keep fighting–are under 30 minutes, to the point and based on a biblical text. They rarely rhyme and almost never alliterate. Good preachers rarely depend on Power Point. They have a remarkable way of demonstrating confident humility, love, and holy living. If a preacher cannot preach, perhaps we can love him toward another job. By all means, let us stop playing into the devil’s hand by putting up with boring or humanistic talking.
Preaching is not boring, nor is it harsh. It’s God talking to us through a person. We need it. We need church gatherings to advance the kingdom of Jesus in an increasingly dark world.
This just in from our friend Billy: The Law is THE BIGGEST DANGER TO CHRISTIANITY. What? Billy? I know Hurricane Fay went over your head and parked. I know you have an energized, 4-year-old daughter (or is she 5 now?). I know the boys (newborn twins) never let you sleep. I know you’re planting a church. But . . . the Law is the biggest danger to Christianity? It’s not the devil? Not the government schools? Not the democrats? Not higher taxes or lower morals? Not the Muslims? Not even Hollywood? Not nominalism, liberalism, Calvinism, humanism, or the gender inclusive Bible? IT’S THE LAW?
In fairness to Billy, he is a good thinker, and just might be onto something. Here’s his post.
Here’s my reply:
Billy’s post if very interesting. Ironic also–it was one of the topics of discussion in my Spiritual Warfare class this morning. Not that the Law is the biggest danger to Christianity (it’s not by the way), but that the Law that Jesus fulfilled is often something to which Christians return for security. It’s as though the devil says something (in a voice like Heath Ledger’s Joker voice) similar to: “Freedom? Oh, that’s so hard to deal with. You have to make so many decisions about everything. Why not just make a rule? Rules are so much easier to follow.” And we less than biblically literate Christians of a Western mindset follow along making checklists and rules to demonstrate our Christian commitment. We seem to emphasize the things Jesus said not to do, and find ourselves lacking in the thing he said to do, which is to love people (John 13:34-35).
Rather than love, we rule. Jesus’ church growth principle does not say that people will know who we serve by how we rule, but that the world will measure us by how we love. Billy rightly points out that people look at him funny when he tells them to love others. Of course they do, we have not shown them how. Ask them how to dictate to people, and they’ll get with it–we all know how to be wonderful little dictators. On the other hand, ask anyone if he or she knows when he or she is being loved or not loved. Pack a Snickers bar when you ask someone for a story about a time when she she was not loved, you’re not going anywhere for awhile.
If people know objectively when they’re not being loved, then they know objectively when they are being loved. Tell them to do the loving stuff to others–they’ll get it. Jesus told us how to be loving as well. Matthew 7:12: treat people like you want to be treated. Nevertheless, Jesus told us to love, not to rule. Simple. If you lied, own up to it and stop lying. Don’t mess around with other women. Don’t curse people. Talk nice. Think about what the other guy needs, just what you need. If the Bible corrects your behavior, accept it and thank the person who brought you that correction–they’re trying to make you wise. Don’t leave everything for someone else to do–pitch in and help. If you made a mess with someone, go to him and clean it up. Grow up for goodness sakes. Respect people; that’s what it means to love others and that’s fairly easy to measure but not as easy as a set of rules. Jesus did not seem to care that one is harder than the other, did he?
We were not told to abandon the law, that’s why I say it is not the big danger. We were simply told that the law no longer binds us. We were told to love, so the big danger is acting unloving or selfish. The biggest danger to Christianity is the pervasive human desire for selfishness. We might call that sin, but not in the sense that the world is loaded with sin and in open rebellion to Christ, which it is. I mean sin in the sense that Christ’s followers are open to sin and do not seem to care much about getting past it.
In the USA, we have traded a selfless love of Christ and desire to advance his kingdom for a sappy, unsatisfying, Wal-Martized, consumer-driven, self-centered religiosity and called it church, which it ain’t. It is sin.
The next great spiritual awakening will start after we tell unloving Pastors, Deacons, and Institutional leaders to take a hike. No, that does not mean that we act unloving to people who act unloving. It means we help them get over their unloving attitudes and actions because loving others is so critical to the advancement of Christianity. Right now, the tendency (in the American church) is to say something like, “The leaders are mean-spirited. I’m leaving.” That is an unloving act. A loving act says, “The leaders are mean-spirited. I’m going to pray for them. I’m going to study the Bible to be sure I am on the right track. I’m going to try to see things from their point of view. I’m going to get wise counsel. Then I will offer Scriptural correction. If they fire me, then I will join those who suffer for righteousness and not those who suffer for foolishness. If they do not take my correction, then I will ask God to find me a new place to serve.” Telling someone to take a hike involves a lot more steps that you imagined, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why we don’t do it–it’s tiresome, painful, and it takes a lot of time. Love takes time.
Oh, by the way, it starts with me. I have to love people first.
So, in a way, Billy is right that the Law is a big problem. I just think that rather than telling people “get past the Law” we will have better results by telling them, “All you need is love.” Shoot, they’ll sing that one.
I’m watching my favorite Southern Baptist Pastor, Rick Warren, masterfully question two of the world’s most powerful men. Barack Obama is surprisingly polished, sensible, and hopeful. John McCain is surprisingly humorous, decisive, clever, and specific. I like decisive specificity, and no, I was not predisposed to one, lockstep, party or candidate (surprise!).
The program shows again on CNN Sunday night at 7:00 CT. I’m sure it will be available on cnn.com and YouTube anytime after that. For the life of me I cannot imagine how anyone can decide for whom to vote apart from these important conversations. Please watch and decide prayerfully. Please don’t be shallow.
Several of us are wondering about the future of academia. Just as the information crush and fuel crises change entertainment, housing, and work, I guarantee you they’ll change education. Here’s what’s in store:
1. Free. MIT put all their courses online. Free. They’re betting that you’ll get a taste of the world’s best tech education and want more. More will cost you, but because you know what you’re buying, you’ll gladly pay. The rest of us still think you’ll buy our product based on reputation alone. We are naive.
2. Online. Online courses tend to cost significantly more than traditional, residency-based courses. People are flocking to them in fantastic numbers. These two points seem at odds until we factor in the enormous physical and emotional cost of relocating from a home environment to a campus. When you’re 18 it’s unually fun and exciting to leave home. With vast numbers of older, nontraditional students, leaving home, work, and friends becomes less fun. Online courses open doors for millions of people for whom relocation is a bad option.
Liberty University’s online seminary has 10,000 students. We have 3,500 and we’re one of the biggest. I have about 25-30 residency students each year. I have 40 waiting for me to get classes online. (Workin’ on it guys.)
There’s an irony here. I’ve been working on putting courses in a simplified format for 4 years. I need help with audio, video, Internet. This year our school administrators mandated that every professor develop an online class, and they provided resources! I like it.
3. Certificates. The Wall Street Journal carried an outstanding opinion piece Wednesday explaining the fallacy and irrelelevance of the traditional bachelor’s degree. Suffice to say that it teaches a lot of stuff you do not need to know and fails to teach a lot of stuff you do need to know. Same with MDiv–all of us who earned one complained about the “Bottom 10.” The useless classes we took to meet requirements but knew we did not need. We endured them as hazing required to join the club. The problem, of course, is that churches are firing Pastors for stuff not learned at seminary–stuff seminaries do not teach or teach too little of (church planting, systems, systemic church evangelism, small group discipleship, relational skills, financial management, and personnel management to name a few). Our school is buying into Certificates as well. Hallelujah!
Certificates promise to change some of that irrelevance with focused, specialized training. They also invite more students to participate in the lifelong learning journey. Moreover, a guy with 15 years of successful business management experience alongside a certificate in church leadership just might make a better Pastor than a guy who shelved books at the seminary library while earning his MDiv. Potential church planters with a certificate and 5 years of apprentice training alongside an experienced church planter will get my vote almost every time.
4. Leveling. We live in a hierarchical country. Have degrees versus don’t. Most of the stats show that a person with a college degree gets paid much more than a person without the degree. That’s about to change.
Increasingly, people will pay for value. They will care little for people with letters following their names unless those people add value. If the preacher is boring, the crowd will attend the satellite church down the street–the one with the great communicator on TV, and campus Pastors with teaching and counseling certificates.
As usual, the Internet changes everything. Maybe it will lower the hyper inflation of higher ed costs and increase participation. Let’s hope so.
