HT: Z

The names of the churches stare back at me.

There are 876 churches in all. Most of them have their names written in my books. They are Effective Evangelistic Churches, High Expectation Churches, Standout Churches, and Breakout Churches. Three books were written on these churches. My teams did hundreds of hours of research.

Though quantification of church health is difficult, we attempted to look at health from several perspectives. Evangelistic health. Discipleship health. Doctrinal health. Fellowship health. Worship health.

We know that our measurements are fallible, but we still think we identified some of the greatest churches in America.

But now some of the names stare back at me. Not all of the names. Just some of the names.

From Great to Mediocrity

The names I am seeing right now are churches that are no longer great. They have fallen from the lists. They no longer meet the criteria.

We found some of the fallen churches from statistical follow-up. We found others in consultations, and still others from familiarity with the churches. Some people told us that other great churches had fallen on tough times. And some people even questioned if our studies had validity since those churches had fallen from greatness.

Again, we make no claim of infallibility in our research. But we do believe that our research is sound. The studies that we did, however, were mostly “rear-view mirror” studies. We looked at churches from the past several years to the present. But past accomplishments are no guarantee for future health. Churches can reverse their positive trends.

It’s those churches whose names are staring at me.

Hubris, Denial, and Nostalgia

Of course, the single word question that disturbs me is “Why?” . . .

Read the rest here.

I have a six year old. Truth be told, if we would let him, he would sit in front of the television for hours consuming hours of programming about sharks. But we (Rae and I) don’t allow it. “One hour a day!” we say. Why? Because, if we do let him watch that much TV, the child’s brain will turn to mush. He will never learn how to engage the social world. He will be become passive. He will probably gain a lot of weight. He will learn to live life from the vantage point of the remote control.

Most parents know this instinctively. Entertaining television programming about sharks can certainly teach a child a lot of stuff about the sea world. But it can only go so far in terms of real life. The child must learn to read, learn to listen/pay attention to a real human voice, learn to stay focused without screen change every .4 seconds. I’m sure my son has A.D.D. or A. D. H. D. It is the brain patterns most easily developed within our media driven culture. But I must nurture my child into real social existence. Or else he too shall become a statistic. He too will ever lack motivation for anything else but the next immediate titillation.  This is why for me, when my son says “but daddy, I just don’t get anything out of the worship service,” I am not the least bit surprised. It is a teaching moment – not the occasion to run to the next mega church Disney service.

These are the reasons I get sad when I hear a parent tell me “my children don’t get anything out of the service . . .

Read the rest here.

HT: Trevin Wax

For more on his forthcoming book, see here.

Community from Crossway on Vimeo.

But as we remember bad news on 9/11, this Fall at our church we will begin a series from Romans 8: a chapter that is a wonderful summary of the best news ever proclaimed. Is there someone you ought to tell so they can hear it?

Read Romans 8 for yourself. Why wouldn’t we share such incredible news? After all, everyone likes to “bear glad tidings.”

• Young couples smile when they tell their parents that a grandchild is on the way.
• No one waits to send a text message that reads, “We won,”
• Or to say, “the test for cancer came back negative.”
• Wouldn’t you like to be the person who let someone know that his or her mortgage had been paid off?

With Romans 8, we have good news that is infinitely and eternally better than any of those examples and we can be stoked to share it.

If you are going through a tough time in life, or if you have questions about how all things can work together for good, or you know someone who is, then invite them to be our guest for this exciting new series and find answers to your deepest questions.

The Romans 8 series will begin on September 11, 2011 when we go back to two services at 9 and 10:30.  Remember this is the chapter that begins with the truth that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ and concludes with the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. In between, Paul encourages that all things work together for God for those who belong to Jesus.

So here’s what you do:

1. Determine that you and your family are going to be here.
2. Identify several individuals or families you know that may not have a church home.
3. Pray that God would open their hearts to hearing the Good News.
4. Call and say, “Would you be my guest for a new sermon series at The Red Brick Church this Fall?” We could go out to breakfast before?  Or, we could have lunch afterwards?

Remember that song many of us learned to sing when we were children, “This Little Light of Mine”? It wasn’t just a nursery rhyme. It was based on Jesus challenge in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-16) that Christians are the light of the world and that under no circumstances should we pull the plug on our lights. Rather, we should wave the glory of Christ about as conspicuously as possible as we invite people to come hear the greatest news ever heard.

As the church grows, so do the demands on church leaders. They implement new programs and recruit new volunteers to staff them. Cradle to grave, everyone has somewhere to go.

This might be the typical pattern, but is it inevitable? What are the costs of bigger and better church programs for every stage of life? What is the pastor’s role in relation to the members?

It’s popular for evangelicals to say every member is a minister. But Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, and Tim Keller discuss in this video whether that idea truly reflects Scripture and the best interests of the church. Indeed, Horton argues that the office of the ministry is in trouble. Watch the video for his explanation why along with responses from Keller and Chandler.

People Want a Pastor from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

I’m grateful for the widespread response this series of blogposts has generated, including all the feedback we have received from people who disagree about certain points. Yes, a few vocal critics have replied with mocking or misrepresentation, as if to illustrate the validity of some of my central concerns. But most of the response we have received (including a lot of the dissent) encourages me—because it comes from young people who seem genuinely thoughtful about the dangers I have tried to highlight, and I trust they are genuinely committed to cultivating a thoroughly biblical worldview.

That being said, I’d like to give a final word of encouragement to my Young, Restless, Reformed friends: Keep reforming.

Semper reformanda (“always reforming”) is one of the enduring slogans often associated with the Protestant Reformation. The origins of the phrase are murky and probably date from the late 1600s. But the kernel of the idea is true enough: Until we are glorified—until we are fully, finally, perfectly conformed to the exact likeness of Christ—we as saints individually, and the whole church collectively, must always be reforming. . .

Read the rest here.

There is a fantasy abroad that the Christian community can have a center without a circumference. Since we gather around Jesus, it is argued, it is our center, not our boundaries, that matter. But this is the persistent illusion of complulsive hypertolerationism. A community with no boundaries can neither have a center nor be a community (Thomas Oden, ‘Why We Believe in Heresy,’ Christianity Today, March 4, 1996).

The faith once for all delivered to the saints is not something which can be caught and tamed; it continually leads the saints forth to new ventures in the cause of Christ, as God calls afresh….To stay at the point to which some revered teacher of the past has brought us, out of a mistaken sense of loyalty to him; to continue to follow a certain pattern of religious activity or attitude just because it was good enough for our fathers and grandfathers – - these and the like are temptations which make the message of Hebrews a necessary and salutary one for us to listen to. Every fresh movement of the Spirit of God tends to become stereotyped in the next generation, and what we have heard with our ears, what our fathers have told us becomes a tenacious tradition encroaching on the allegiance which ought to be accorded only to the living and active word of God. As Christians survey the world today, they see very much land waiting to be possessed in the name of Christ; but to take possession of it calls for a generous measure of that forward looking faith which is so earnestly urged upon the readers of this epistle. Those first readers were living at a time when the old, cherished order was breaking up. Attachment to venerable traditions could avail them nothing in this situation; only attachment to the unchanging and onward moving Christ could carry them forward and enable them to face a new order with confidence and power. So, in a day when everything that can be shaken is being shaken before our eyes and even beneath our feet, let us in turn give thanks for the unshakable kingdom which we have inherited, which endures forever when everything else to which men and women may pin their hopes disappears and leaves not a wrack behind (Bruce, Commentary on Hebrews, 392).