I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. Romans 7:9-11, NRSV.

The law is holy, just and good (v. 12), it’s how you live by it that determines how it might affect you. This is why he would tell the Corinthian church “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6; cf. Romans 7:4-6).

Paul’s point in Romans 7:9-11? The law told me not to do something, but sin used the law to get him to do it anyway. It seems preposterous that he actually suggested, “the very commandment that promised life to me proved to be death to me.” But that is exactly what he declared.

Not convinced that simple prohibitions aren’t enough? In Colossians 2:20-21 Paul asked, “Why do you submit to regulations, ‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch?’” After all, they “have an appearance of wisdom…but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence” (v. 23). Prohibitions are needed, but they obviously aren’t the solution.

You can’t legislate away temptation and sin. Think of all the laws on the books in our land, but those laws don’t eliminate the problems. For some, the fear of consequences is enough to keep them from doing certain things; but for others, it only tempts them. Prohibition didn’t work. Many believe the war on drugs isn’t working, either. Moreover, experience has shown me that when I tell my kids not to do something, there is a good chance that they are going to give it a try, nonetheless. It’s not that I want them to; it’s that the temptation to test is too great.

In the next couple of days, I hope to unpack some thoughts that will allow us to approach complex problems in a way that delves deeper than surface prohibitions to touch the heart, where transformation rests.

Our first child is nearly there. Sadly, I know she hears things at school, and on the bus to school, that are generating tons of questions. She’s not asking outright as yet, but I can see the wheels in her head are turning and I know what’s going on around her. I’m fearful.

Some shoot for isolation and it works for them. Others give isolation a try and it compounds the desire to test the waters. I suppose Tisha and I are clinging to something more along the lines of insulation, but we want to do it the right way.

God knows something’s going wrong. I’m still floored by an article I read recently in Neue Magazine on the subject of sex and abortion among professed Christians. I was shocked, and yet at the same time not surprised, that 30% of professed evangelicals between 18-29 have experienced pregnancy compared to 29% professed non-Christians.

Moreover, I couldn’t fathom that, according to the Guttmacher Institute, “65 percent of the 1 million abortions performed in America each year are obtained by women identifying themselves as either Protestant or Catholic.” Wow.

You’ve got to love the question posed by Tyler Charles, the article’s author,

How can that be, when the Church has been so outspoken in its opposition to sexual sins- to premarital sex, extramarital affairs, divorce and abortion, to name a few?

It’s a valid question, to which the rest of the article gives great insight.

The fact is… Something is wrong. I’m convinced it’s more than just something. It’s a lot of things… There’s an elephant in the room, and how we can keep ignoring it is beyond me. But the elephant isn’t sex, abortion, or anything of that nature. The elephant is that the approach to these subjects that we employ isn’t working. Simply suggesting, “Don’t do that!” isn’t sufficient. In fact, for some, it can actually encourage the behavior that is being discouraged.

I will address that tomorrow. Have a great day!

I’ve read about and experienced all sorts of evangelism “techniques.” I’ve tried a lot of them. Many of them weren’t worth the effort. They were rife with gimmickry, marketing tools, and lines only a salesman could appreciate. Ever seen the salesperson at the mall kiosk who interrupts your brisk walk to Foot Locker because he/she notices your hands are dry and cracked? Yeah, youknow the person. “Uh…I’m in a hurry. Thanks, though.” On the way back, you purposefully walk as far away from that kiosk as entirely possible, using your peripheral vision to gather whether or not she is going to notice you as you now speedily walk past her. Why? I know why I do it. I know that she’s been trained. I know that she is skilled in techniques that are so convincing that if I stop, there’s a good chance she’s going to convince me that I need that stuff for my hands. And you know what? I just might. But it is the approach that she’s going to use that is going to use that rubs me the wrong way. It’s her techniques that bother me.

Yet, this is the kind of thing that can happen in churches. Churches offer evangelism classes that emphasize techniques that I believe place more emphasis on the approach than on God. Everyone seems to be looking for magic in a bottle when it comes to evangelism. Irrespective of the method, the method isn’t what is most important. The “how” of evangelism is important. Don’t get me wrong. You can say all the right things, in all the wrong ways, and never get anywhere. But… God, not the method or strategy, is the one who “gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

I feel like I’ve believed this principle, but the increase of God is only by attribution. It’s as if we simply give God the glory for everything, something I wholeheartedly believe we should do, but the response was due to human ingenuity, technique, method, and etc.

I remember teaching a bible class on one occasion when studying the book of Acts. I asked the class, “How did God open Lydia’s heart so that she would receive the message of Paul?” The response was dead silence. The text doesn’t reveal “how” the Lord opened her heart, so it couldn’t be answered with 100% certainty. But I don’t believe that was what was bothering the class. I think what produced silence was the recognition that God did something to help Lydia listen. It took God’s active intervention to make it happen, and I think that makes some uncomfortable. I know it did me, but it was a question I had to consider. In the end, I came to believe that it was going to take immense faith to believe that God is actually the one who gives the increase.

Spiritual growth is dependent upon God, too. We are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). For years, I believed spiritual growth was a glorified “self-help” project by which God receives glory. Certainly, we play a significant role in our own spiritual development. But so does God. In fact, Paul suggests that when I don’t have it in me, God can work in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Wow.

This was one of the most significant lessons that God taught me in 2010. I could read book after book, try approach after approach, tweak this that or the other, all I wanted, but if I put so much stress on those things, to the neglect of God himself, it would all be in vain. I’d have a misplaced emphasis and miss the point altogether.

The sooner ministers realize this, and the sooner that elders and church leaders understand this, the better off the church will be.  The sooner we quit abusing Jesus’ parables about kingdom growth for the purpose of giving us incentives to “grow” the church, maybe we’ll quit acting like salesmen  on late night infomercials. Those guys drive a lot of us nuts, and if we’ll listen to those outside the church, we might find that our gospel sales pitches aren’t doing much for them, either.

Ministers who believe that it is incumbent upon themselves to grow a church may not realize they are putting themselves in God’s place. After all, God is the one who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). Sure, we plant and water, but God gives the growth.

I am terrible with plants. Last Summer, I built planter boxes for our front porch, bought a few plants, planted them and watered them. Guess what happened to them? They died. I planted and watered them, but I could not give them life or sustain their lives.

Here’s the perfect segue into our concern for saving churches. It is not our job to save churches, either. Last year, Dan Bouchelle, a talented pulpit minister for a healthy, growing church in Amarillo, stepped away from the pulpit to run an organization involved in church planting. On his blog, Confessions of a Former Preacher, he began to share with his readers why. On May 15, he offered this post. It apparently stirred up a lot of controversy, but I’m inclined to believe much of it was because what he stated was true, and it was something that some of us don’t want to believe. Read it, though. I think it’s worth the time. He lays out a real framework for thinking about churches that makes sense.

Shortly thereafter I, too, stepped away from the pulpit. It was not for all the same reasons, but I stepped away nonetheless. It was somewhat symbolic for me. In stepping away from the pulpit, I saw myself as actually surrendering to God, giving him the reins that he deserves.  He could now use me as he saw fit. He didn’t need me to micromanage his church, grow it, or save it.

I believe the misconceptions about growing and salvaging churches revolve around the business model we’ve incorporated in America for churches. They operate as 501C3 non-profit organizations with operating budgets and all the politics that goes with them. Programs are often slashed, not because the don’t work, but rather because churches don’t possess the operating expenses to sustain them. Something is wrong.

Still, God used experiences, blogs, and truth to show me how off-base I was. Thankfully, I got the picture. I learned the lesson.

Dumb Bumper Sticker

I will continue to look, but I won’t hold my breath. Look for what, you ask? I will continue to look for a person who’s been compelled to change because of a bumper sticker! I have been searching for years, but haven’t found one person who’s ever admitted to having been swayed to a pro-life position, to believe in God, or to change their political affiliation because a bumper sticker was so powerfully moving that they couldn’t but change. Despite the futility of my search, I know they will continue to be printed and placed on bumpers,  the back of windows, or, as was the case for me today, passed out in a local WalMart.

I was torn yesterday morning. We’d been purchasing our fruit and vegetables at a local grocery store, but I was short on time. Heading back to campus, WalMart was right on the way. I let convenience reign, when I knew I should have forgone convenience for something more enduring (That’s another subject, though.). So I went to WalMart.

Inside I crossed paths with a man I’d met before. In fact, he is a part of my Christian fellowship, but not a member of our particular congregation. He hands me a religio-political bumper sticker. I’m not even an Obama fan and it ticked me off. The thought that a dumb bumper sticker like the one he handed me might, at all, be persuasive is simply absurd to me. It smacked of everything that I’ve grown weary of over the years. To be brutally frank, I was embarrassed- both for him and for the fact that this is what things have come to.

Last year, I read Lord Save Us From Your Followers by Dan Merchant. It was an insightful look into how people perceive professed Christians. Part of Merchant’s project was to stick a bunch of bumper stickers onto a white jump suite and ask New Yorkers questions about Jesus and Christians. He found that a good number of people, several of whom were atheists, had a favorable opinion about Jesus, but an unfavorable opinion about today’s Christians. There seems to be a growing disparity between the modern Christian and the First Century Savior. His book probes into why. He’s also produced a DVD that is probably worth watching. I haven’t seen it, though.

Merchant had more than a few things to suggest about “bumper sticker” evangelism. It’s not conversational, at all. Nor is it really affective. In fact, it tends to be rather offensive. But the book spoke to me because of my growing disgust for an approach that demeans more than discusses, that markets more than it moves.

I mean really, is this what we’ve come down to? Walking around WalMart passing out religio-political bumper stickers? Lord save us from your followers? These days I can’t help but agree!

We in America love our freedoms. We are a country built upon religious freedoms, especially. Living, though, in a representative republic that employs the democratic process means we are going to face tough questions about matters relating to all kinds of religions. We seem to be all about religious freedom and expression, as long as it has “Christian” leanings. But we are learning that freedom is a double-edged sword. We want freedom of religion because it is sacred to us; but, we also want freedom from religions like Islam. Both, though, cannot be had.

What the last 9 years have taught me is that the Way of Jesus is the only solution. Political Conservatism isn’t the answer. The panacea is a movement away from politics as usual to the Way of Jesus. Jesus never once encouraged his disciples to reform the Roman republic for the benefit of His mission in the world. I contend, first century Christians were indifferent to the political process all together. This is the route I’ve chosen. I’ve chosen Jesus as my Hope over a President. I’ve chosen the Kingdom of God as my dominion over any earthly rule. I’ve chosen the way of peace over the way of the world.

I’m glad that there has been outcry over the idiocy of a pastor who thinks Koran burnings send the message of Jesus. I also think its incredibly foolish for an Islamic group to want to erect a mosque anywhere remotely close to Ground Zero. I, personally, hope it never happens. Whatever happens, though, I hope that Christians aren’t made to look foolish because we haven’t learned to practically apply John 18:36!

And then there is what is called reframing. To reframe something is to see something from a different angle or perspective and then communicate it in that way. Reframing allows us to see things we might not otherwise see.

It is safe to say that perspective is everything.

People, myself included, have tended to look at Christianity in a myriad of different ways. Their thoughts are predicated upon how they’ve framed it. But I’ve noticed I have not always been very comfortable with how others have framed it.

Is Christianity about relationship or rule keeping or both? How you’ve framed it makes all the difference.

In the below YouTube clip, Jason Gray has framed Christianity in a way that may or may not make you uncomfortable. I think I understand what he’s getting at, though. How do you feel about it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX5qLAbrDLk&feature=channel[/youtube]