Monthly Archive for January, 2010

Page 2 of 8

If you watch carefully, you will notice that big talkers and fools sometimes gain dignity on the edge of time

Published on January 28, 2010 in death and Wendell Berry. 0 Comments

Jayber Crow is the barber in Wendell Berry’s recommended fictional community of Port William.  As such he witnesses how life and circumstances sometimes transform people . . .And, in that sense, there is a parallel between Jayber Crow’s job of being a barber and mine as a pastor.

But you could not be where I was with experiencing many such transformations.  One of your customers, one of your neighbors (let us say), is a man know to be more or less a fool, a big talker, and one day he comes into your shop and you have heard and you see that he is dying even as he is standing there looking at you, and you can see his his eyes that (whether he admits it or not) he knows it, and all of a sudden everything is changed.  You seem no longer to be standing together in the center of time.  Now you are on time’s edge, looking offing into eternity.  And this man, your foolish neighbor, your friend and brother, has shed somehow the laughter that followed him through the world, and has assumed the dignity and the strangeness of a traveler departing forever.  Jayber Crow, page 129. 

See also, “We’ve all got to go through enough to kill us.”’ “Living long won’t kill you, not for a long time.”  And, “Take a rest in Port William fiction.”

Is it the Haggard’s place to be critical of the process by which New Life church disciplined Ted Haggard?

Published on January 27, 2010 in Forgiveness. 7 Comments

In a Christianity Today interview, Gayle Haggard responds to questions about her decision to stay with her husband after his infidelity became public.  I’m thankful the Haggard’s are together.  While there are biblical grounds for divorce (Matthew 19:9), and Gayle Haggard had them, restoration is the goal to be pursued.  The question of whether or not a couple should remain together is one I address in Unpacking Forgiveness.

At the same time, in this interview, Mrs. Haggard questions how their relationship to the church was handled.  Consider her response to this question:

You spend a significant portion of the book explaining the way the overseers treated your family, asking you to break ties with New Life and move out of the state. How did you view the Christian community differently after what happened?

I was disappointed because I so believe in the church. I was disappointed that people started believing the worst about Ted and that we were cut off from our church, which wasn’t representative of our church at all as a body. We had a family, relational church, but others made that decision and separated us from the church. That was devastating to me. I felt that not only was I being ripped and ravaged in my relationship with my husband but just a few days later was told that I no longer belonged at the church, so I felt that I was being ripped and ravaged by the church, or certain leaders. That was as devastating to me as what was going on in my marriage. I was so invested in both in our marriage and in our church. That did shake me, and it was a dark time for me as I tried to process through. But God who is the gentle restorer walked me through it. I haven’t lost my passion for the church, but I want the church to be the church and to stop denying the power of the gospel in the lives of people.  (Read the rest of the interview here.)

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Haggard is critical of how this was handled.  As I talk about in Unpacking Forgiveness, forgiveness doesn’t mean the elimination of consequences.  With the level of leadership that Ted Haggard accepted at his church, came a proportionate accountability.  There is simply no way the Haggard’s could have continued in a relationship with that particular body without being a terrible distraction. 

Further, given his disqualification, the Haggard’s should have realized in this situation that repentance submits to the process. 

Some who know the situation better than I might counter, “It was a very flawed process.”  Of course, it was a flawed process.  Until Christ comes back, how the church does things will always be flawed.  And, the leaders should be accountable.  But, in this case, accountability and critique should not come from the leader (or the family of the leader) when he so grievously betrayed their trust.

Your thoughts?  Is it the Haggard’s place to critical of the process, flawed as it may have been?

Mark Driscoll in Haiti

Published on January 27, 2010 in Missions and suffering. 0 Comments

HT: Z

Meditate with pen in hand

Published on January 27, 2010 in Leadership development and Scripture Memory. 0 Comments

One of the things we’re encouraging our leaders to do is to write in their Bibles.

  • When you read the day’s chapter of Proverbs, paraphrase the Proverb that gets your attention (See here).  So, today is the 27th.  Read Proverbs 27 with pen in hand!
  • Journal your prayers.  Write out sentence prayers.  Pray with pen in hand.
  • Write out your Scripture memory verses (See here).
  • Write the date at the end of a book of the Bible each time you read it (See here).

Stephen Altrogge has a very helpful post on how to meditate on Scripture.

Meditate With Pen In Hand
I first heard of this from John Piper, who said the following:

“A pastor will not be able to feed his flock rich and challenging insight into God’s word unless he becomes a disciplined thinker. But almost none of us does this by nature. We must train ourselves to do it. And one of the best ways to train ourselves to think about what we read is to read with pen in hand and to write down a train of thought that comes to mind. Without this, we simply cannot sustain a sequence of questions and answers long enough to come to penetrating conclusions”

The practice of writing down my thoughts as I read my Bible has had a transforming effect on my devotional times. Writing forces me to think through each verse, and to trace the logic of each passage. It helps me to fight distraction and to focus all my attention on the words before me. Go out and get yourself a Moleskine Watercolor Notebook Large journal and start writing as you read.

Read more of Stephen Altrogge’s excellent thoughts here.

Preaching has fallen on hard times . . .

Published on January 26, 2010 in Leadership development and Preaching. 0 Comments

One of our central values as a local church is the preaching of the Word.  The Bible teaches that the proclamation of the Word is God’s appointed means (2 Timothy 4:1) for building up God’s people (Ephesians 4:11-13, Titus 1:3).

The goal for our local church is to increasingly value biblical preaching.  One of our most immediate goals is to demonstrate our commitment to preaching by seeing a group of men consistently pray with me before the sermon.

There is a great deal to be learned by the below article by Al Mohler.

Al Mohler:

Preaching has fallen on hard times. So suggests a report out of Durham University’s College of Preachers. The British university’s CODEC research center, which aims to explore “the interfaces between the Bible, the digital environment and contemporary culture,” conducted the study to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the College of Preachers. The report is not very encouraging.

As Ruth Gledhill of The Times [London] reports, “Sermons, history shows, can be among the most revolutionary forms of human speech. From John Calvin to Billy Graham, preaching has had the power to topple princes, to set nation against nation, to inspire campaigners to change the world and impel people to begin life anew.”

Indeed, preaching is the central act of Christian worship, but its great aim reaches far above merely changing the world. The preaching of the Word of God is the chief means by which God conforms Christians to the image of Christ. Rightly understood, true Christian preaching is not aimed only at this earthly life, but is the means whereby God prepares his people for eternity.

Yet, you wouldn’t know this if you judged the importance of preaching by its place in many of today’s congregations. Gledhill observes, “In many churches this most vibrant of moments has withered to little more than 20 minutes of tired droning that serves only to pad out the gap between hymns and lunch.”

More here.

Books I recommend

Published on January 25, 2010 in Recommended Reading. 0 Comments

People ask me sometimes for book recommendations.  You can visit my Amazon store here.

Full disclosure: If you buy something while you’re there.  I will make a few cents.  If you buy a Kindle while you’re there, I’ll make a few dollars.

Either way – - a lot of thought (and reading) has gone into the list.

Should I get a tattoo even if my parents don’t agree?

Published on January 25, 2010 in Parenting. 0 Comments

Dr. Russell Moore gives his answer to this question.  Click here.

“Stay hitched to your toddler”

Published on January 24, 2010 in abortion. 0 Comments

Again, whenever you hear an argument for elective abortion, stop and ask this question: Would this justification for killing the unborn work for killing a toddler?  If not, your critic is assuming that the unborn aren’t human, a point for which he needs to argue.  Trot out your toddler to expose the hidden (and perhaps unrecognized) assumptions in the argument.  Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life, page 32.

Whether or not they heard the muffled scream of human smoke . . .

Published on January 24, 2010 in abortion and Psalms. 0 Comments

God only knows.  But, he does know.  This is the point of Psalm 139.

Think of it this way on Sanctity of Life Sunday — When the Nazis gassed Jews and then incinerated them, the soot of image bearers curled into the air before falling over the land like coal dust.

No one remained clean.  A layer of human soot spoiled the soil.

And, whether or not the citizens of Dachau, Treblinka and Auschwitz tasted the human dust when it poisoned their cultural water, whether or not they saw the ash of the murdered when they swept it off their streets, whether or not they heard the muffled scream of human smoke, the God of heaven and earth, who knit the Holocaust victims together in their mother’s womb – - He knew, and knows, and will repay (Romans 12:19).

Read Psalm 139, the whole thing, and remember that God knows.

Wendell Berry and living long; It won’t kill you, not for a long time

Published on January 23, 2010 in Quotes and Wendell Berry. 2 Comments

If you’re looking for good fiction, I commend to you Wendell Berry.  Jayber Crow is a wonderful place to begin.

Burley Coulter is the man in Berry fiction.  My favorite quote may be the one found in this post . . .Or, in this one.  But, here is another quality Burley Coulter response.

They found a certain wondrous glee in the joke of getting old, and they varied it endlessly.

“Age,” said River Bill Thacker toward the end of a conversation to the general effect that time, contrary to expectation, made old men out of young ones.  “Age has more more for my morals that Methodism ever did.”

“Well,” Burley said, “thinking maybe of his mother’s years of dying away by bits,” some people live a long time.”

Catching his tone, Bill said, “What’s the matter with living a long time?  It ain’t going to kill you.”

“No,” Burley said.  “Not for a long time.”