Food for thought by Eugene Peterson

I recently heard a quote from Eugene Peterson that put a lot of things into perspective for me. In Peterson’s book Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity, he says this:

For a long time, I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation. The curriculum would consist of four courses.

Course I: Creative Plagiarism. I would put you in touch with a wide range of excellent and inspirational talks, show you how to alter them just enough to obscure their origins, and get you a reputation for wit and wisdom.

Course II: Voice Control for Prayer and Counseling. We would develop your own distinct style of Holy Joe intonation, acquiring the skill in resonance and modulation that conveys and unmistakable aura of sanctity.

Course III: Efficient Office Management. There is nothing that parishioners admire more in their pastors than the capacity to run a tight ship administratively. If we return all phone calls within twenty-four hours, answer all the letters within a week, distributing enough carbons to key people so that they know we are on top of things, and have just the right amount of clutter on our desk—not too much, or we appear inefficient, not too little or we appear underemployed—we quickly get the reputation for efficiency that is far more important than anything that we actually do.

Course IV: Image Projection. Here we would master the half-dozen well-known and easily implemented devices that that create the impression that we are terrifically busy and widely sought after for counsel by influential people in the community. A one-week refresher course each year would introduce new phrases that would convince our parishioners that we are bold innovators on the cutting edge of the megatrends and at the same time solidly rooted in all the traditional values of our sainted ancestors.

(I have been laughing for several years over this trade school training with which I plan to make my fortune. Recently, though, the joke has backfired on me. I keep seeing advertisements for institutes and workshops all over the country that invite pastors to sign up for this exact curriculum. The advertised course offerings are not quite as honestly labeled as mine, but the content appears to be identical—a curriculum that trains pastors to satisfy the current consumer tastes in religion. I’m not laughing anymore.)

Pretty thought provoking stuff… I’ll write more about this later in the week.

Until next time sports fans…

People will never respect you for what you’re ABOUT to do.

I came across this blog this morning… I was so moved by it that I thought I would share it with the three of you that regularly read this. Such a powerful reminder…

People Will Never Respect You Because Of What You’re ABOUT To Do

September 25th, 2009, Category : Deep Stuff

“My wife and I have thought about adopting for a while.”

“I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

“I think I might ask her out.”

“Yea, next time I go to a show I’ll sponsor a Compassion child.”

“You know, I’m gonna finally tell my boss to chill out and treat us with respect.”

“Dude! The church I’m planting is going to feed the homeless every Saturday morning.”

“That’s it. I’m seriously going to drop everything and become a photographer.”

These are just a few of the lines I remember from conversations I have been part of or overheard (yes, I’m a stalker) the past few weeks.

Dreams are fuel.

They fuel us to victory.

But most of the time they stay just that.

Dreams.

I lived most of my life “about” to do something.

Then one day Heather and I decided to stop living almost and start living all out.

Since that decision we have adopted our son Losiah, climbed the highest peak in North America, Jumped out of airplanes, been on a reality show, moved across the country, quit my job, signed a record deal, traveled to Uganda, co lived with 3 families, and so much more.

I honestly don’t share that to brag.

It might sound miserable to most of you.

We have had our share of suck.

If you read our blogs you know.

But we also realized that the American dream of white picket fences and a 9-5 isn’t our shtick.

And here is the harder truth.

It isn’t a lot of yours either.

You are living in the myth that stability = simply and safely existing.

Those statements up top usually end a few months later with financial, lack of time, fear, and man power excuses.

Here’s the truth.

There will NEVER be enough money, time, or help.

Heather and I spend at least one night a week looking at the checking account and crying then laughing then crying.

I could get a job at a church and play it safe.

That would not be a bad decision.

It would be a great decision.

It just would not be the RIGHT decision, right now.

Because right now God has called me to pour into the global church and when that season is over, it would be a blessing to work in the local church again.

Just not now.

And so we pray, fast, hustle, laugh, and cry.

And inside all of that, we live.

I’m willing to bet a lot of you are ready for an adventure.

So what is it?

What are you going to do this week to take that one step away from safety and towards calling?

Los

the post can also be found at: http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2009/09/people-will-never-respect-you-because-of-what-youre-about-to-do

Late night worship… in the 4Runner…

Was driving after a doctors appointment in Fort Worth last night, and heard this song again for the first time. Never really been a Switchfoot fan, but the more I listen to the lyrics on their new album, I think all that’s changing. Such a powerful song, and I thought I’d share it with you!

“Let Your love be strong” Switchfoot, Oh Gravity:

In this world of news, I’ve found nothing new
I’ve found nothing pure
Maybe I’m just idealistic to assume that truth
Could be fact and form
That love could be a verb
Maybe I’m just a little misinformed

As the dead moon rises, and the freeways sigh
Let the trains watch over the tides and the mist
Spinning circles in our sky’s tonight
Let the trucks roll in from Los Angeles
Maybe our stars are unanimously tired

(chorus)
Let your love be strong, and I don’t care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
All of my world hanging on your love

Let the wars begin, let my strength wear thin
Let my fingers crack, let my whole world fall apart
Train the monkeys on my back to fight
Let it start tonight
When my world explodes, when my stars touch the ground
Falling down like broken satellites

Let your love be strong, and I don’t care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your sky’s
All that i am hanging on, all of my world resting on your love

Good thoughts for tonight… Missing my wife tonight. Thankful for another day to live.

“Lord, let Your will be done in me, let Your kindgom come in me, let my life be a preview of coming attractions.”

Glorieta Fuge 09 – Tuesday Night “The Faith to LET GO.”

Thought Provoking Article

The Danger of Self-Diagnosis

Posted by John Mann

Many sons of the prophets have taken to pronouncing the impending doom of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pointing to falling baptismal rates, rising ages, and static churches, we have summoned the intervention of the successful to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. As the summoned practitioners meet in special session this week, the patients fight it out in the waiting room about the deliberations until we receive the prognosis and path of treatment. A possible merger of the IMB and NAMB, a possible partnership with Acts 29, or a restructuring of the Cooperative Program have all been prescribed as the solution to what ails us from the Web MD of Baptist blogdom. Not to be pedantic, but I would encourage us to look to the Great Physician for the proper diagnosis before we give the prognosis based on a self-diagnosis.

Standing before Jesus, Peter makes his confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus then responds with a gnomic principle, “Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Matthew 16:16, 18). I will make two presumptions. 1) We agree that the rock to which Jesus refers is Peter’s confession, and not Peter himself. 2) The existence of local churches is irreplaceably important to Christ. This leads me to deduce that, if the Southern Baptist Convention is indeed destined for the doom pronounced by the aforementioned prophets, it is not ultimately due to irrelevance, but to unfaithfulness. As the SBC stands on the brink of another time of transition, I would encourage us to remember two things.

First, let us not become so consumed with baptismal numbers that we forget that when all is said and done, baptism is not the goal, conversion is. Though baptism is our method of measurement for the effectiveness of our outreach, we must be careful that the method of measurement does not become the goal itself. In other words, if we increase baptisms without increasing conversions, we have settled for a lesser gospel, and indeed, a false gospel. A true biblical confession will involve baptism, but if we are not careful, we will separate baptism from a true confession.

The second truth we must bear in mind from this text is that the success of the futuristic, not -yet-existent universal church cannot be separated from the success of the present day local church. The activity of God is primarily seen in the local church. Not that God is dependent upon such, but God has ordained such. I pray that as we seek to return our focus to the Great Commission, that in doing so, our focus will return to the local church over and above the development of our own kingdom. Our investment to the Kingdom of God is an investment that is made in, with, and through the local church. When Jesus said His church will be built upon the rock of Peter’s confession, based on the rest of the New Testament witness, He certainly involved the building of the eternal church through the local church.

Of course, the promise of Jesus is that, given the proper confession of His people and the power of His word, the church will not be overpowered. So, need we fear the death of the Southern Baptist Convention? No, for life is a byproduct of Christ’s promise of the success of the local church built upon the confession of her members. Let us not fear the death of our beloved Convention, for upon it the Kingdom of God does not reside.

Rather, let us fear the loss of the New Testament confession of Christ as our Lord within the local churches. If we maintain the preeminence of the local church and a proper confession, our churches will flourish. If our churches flourish, our Convention will flourish. If we have healthy churches, we will have a healthy Convention. It is one thing to know the symptoms of the sickness. It is quite another to know the path to wellness. The Convention may be able to describe the symptoms, but they are incapable of producing the cure. As the Task Force deliberates today, let us pray for their focus not to be upon the programmatic and structural success of the Convention. Let us pray for their hearts to be focused upon the local churches and how they can be encouraged to maintain a healthy confession of Christ as Lord. For in Him alone is there life abundant.

http://sbctoday.com/2009/08/26/the-danger-of-self-diagnosis

(re)focus//a reintroduction to the Jesus of Scripture

Glorieta Fuge 09 – Wednesday Night “The Faith to STAND.”

Glorieta Fuge 09 – Thursday Night “The Faith to GO into the UNKNOWN.”

Glorieta Fuge 09 – Friday Night “The Faith to WAIT.”

Update:

I’ve had a number of folks write and ask when my message from Glorieta Fuge (Week 7) would be posted, I’ve been running with my head cut off and I’m finally at a place where I can work on those. They should be up within a week. Sorry for the delay, and I guess I can apologize up front for the folks that really want to listen/watch those messages. They aren’t worth much, but for whatever their worth, I’m making free for whoever wants them. Blessings on you today! BCB//20nine

Great Commission Resurgence must be fueled by relationship

‘Great Commission Resurgence’ must be Fueled by Relationship
by Mark Kelly (Baptist Press)

If Southern Baptists want to see a “Great Commission Resurgence,” Henry Blackaby believes they need to focus on the relationship between disciples and the living Lord Jesus, not launch a new emphasis on evangelism.

“I have felt for a long time that Southern Baptists have focused on evangelism and missed discipleship,” Blackaby told Baptist Press May 11. “The most important part of the Great Commission is ‘teach them to practice everything I have commanded you.’ That’s discipleship and that’s the heart of the Great Commission. If we want to have a resurgence in the Great Commission, there’s got to be a refocusing on the priorities of Christ for discipleship.”

Blackaby, a longtime pastor, college president and coauthor of the “Experiencing God” series of Bible study materials, said declining baptism and membership statistics in the Southern Baptist Convention reflect not so much a lack of passion for Christ’s command to make disciples as a lack of relationship with Jesus Christ.

“When you hear the Southern Baptist leadership being concerned about baptisms and all that, those are a byproduct of discipleship,” Blackaby said. “When you lead a person … into a relationship where Christ is Lord, everything else follows. You don’t have to convince them they need to spend time in God’s Word or prayer or in the fellowship or on mission. That’s a spontaneous response to a relationship to the living Lord.”

Issuing a call for a resurgence of commitment to the Great Commission triggers the wrong response in Christians who are focused on religious activity, rather than a relationship with Christ, Blackaby added.

“Southern Baptists are program-oriented. We are missing the relationship,” Blackaby said. “When you make a statement like [that], the first thing most pastors look for is, ‘What program’s going to come down the pike to help me do that?’ You don’t need a program to help you do that. You just need the relationship to the living Lord. The reason we are not effective is because we have moved from the relationship to a program activity.”

THE REASON FOR DECLINE

Substituting activities for relationship also is why many churches are in decline or on a plateau, Blackaby said.

“We are not leading people into that immediate relationship with the living Lord. If you listen to most sermons, that intimate personal relationship is missing,” Blackaby said. “If you talk to many church members, they feel they are in the right relationship to God when they attend all the worship services, they tithe, they go on a mission trip. And many a pastor would evaluate a member, not from the intimate relationship with the Lord, but for how faithful he is in all the activities of the church. And does he tithe?

“It’s activity. Many of God’s people have moved from the relationship to religious activity,” Blackaby added. “We are content to live without the manifest presence, power and activity of God.”

The place many churches need to begin is not with a call to commitment and activity, but with a call to repentance, Blackaby explained.

“We don’t talk about repentance,” Blackaby said. “Repentance is the essence of what God says throughout the Bible: ‘You have lost the relationship. Return to Me and then you will experience Me returning to you.’ When that happens, the manifest presence and power and activity of God is very real.”

Attempts at evangelism without relationship are artificial and yield artificial fruit, Blackaby noted.

“If you try to bypass [relationship] and give them a program, the Roman Road or another pattern for evangelism, you are creating an artificial approach to evangelism. And of course it has that same kind of fruit,” Blackaby explained. “Those who have been led to the Lord on a program are very reluctant to respond to the lordship of Christ.”

Witnessing to the lost is supposed to be a spontaneous response to a relationship with Christ, not an activity, Blackaby added.

“[The Bible] doesn’t say, ‘You are to do witnessing.’ It says, ‘You are witnesses unto Me,’” Blackaby said. “‘Out of the relationship with Me, you will have an enormous witness unto Me.’ If you’re not doing it now just out of relationship to the Lord, don’t look for a program that would help you do what you ought to be doing spontaneously.”

‘THE GREATEST SINGLE NEED’

What would most help Southern Baptists experience renewed passion for the Great Commission is solid biblical teaching about Christ as head of the church, Blackaby contended.

“The reaching of the lost is a spontaneous response to the lordship of Christ. If you bypass the lordship of Christ and you get God’s people in a mode to take the Gospel to a lost world … you’re going to have a tough time,” he said. “I have talked to many, many people in the churches. They have never had one message on the nature of the church. Not one. So they are practicing religious activity and looking for a program, but the headship of Christ, what that means and what it will look like and how we respond when Christ exercises His headship, that’s just not being taught.

“I would say the greatest single need is to return to the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ and all of the implications that come from that,” Blackaby said. “If a church is in a spiritual mess, the only thing that can get them out of that is a good, solid biblical exposition that leads them into the deepest and most profound relationship with the living Lord.”

Ironically, calling on pastors to focus on evangelism ultimately results in less evangelism if it causes a loss in focus on the lordship of Christ, Blackaby noted.

“There’s a huge gap in the teaching ministry of pastors. We have put on them a huge sense of the priority of evangelism. We had an evangelist in our church not long ago. He said the thing I thought he would say: that the No. 1 priority above everything else is to reach out to the lost,” Blackaby said. “I would say that’s not true. The priority of every congregation is the lordship of Christ and everything else will come out of that. Many a pastor would not know how in the world to guide their church under the lordship of Christ … because His life doesn’t function out of that mindset.”

When church members begin living in a vital relationship with Christ under His lordship, baptisms and membership growth will take care of themselves, Blackaby said.

“Anybody coming under the lordship of Christ automatically has a God-given DNA to be on mission with their Lord to touch a lost world,” Blackaby said. “It’s not a matter of trying to get our churches back on the program of the Great Commission, but rather into the relationship with the living Lord who is on mission in our world.

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=30477
http://www.blackaby.org

Why Revival Tarries – By Henry Blackaby

Why Revival Tarries

by Henry Blackaby

Ezekiel 18:31b-32 is the heart cry of God to His covenant people, Israel: “‘… why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God. ‘Therefore, turn and live!’” God had just reminded His people that if “a righteous man turns away from his righteousness … and dies … it is because of the iniquity that he has done that he dies” (Ezekiel 18:24-26, 26).

Like the “house of Israel,” God’s people continue to sin against God in our day and live without any awareness of the consequences.

We seem to be totally indifferent to any judgment whatsoever, as if that only happened in the Old Testament. But, of course, that’s just not true. It was to the people of God in Rome that Paul wrote: “… the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” For anyone who sins and continues to sin without repentance -– especially God’s people -– it leads to “death.”

And did Jesus not warn God’s people that they must repent or perish? Read the accounts in Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:1-9 and Luke 17:20-36. Repentance among God’s people requires an immediate turning that changes our heart, will and actions. Repentance requires a changed lifestyle. Therefore, we too must heed Christ’s warning for our own generation.

We must possess a wholehearted desire to return to God.

Many of us today are aware that America is in desperate need of revival, but we haven’t made the connection. While we see the spiritual darkness around us, we do not recognize that the greater problem is with the light! Light dispels darkness! Jesus said that His disciples are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16). When the light of Christ is dimmed by our sin, the darkness flourishes. But when we repent, His light shines in us and through us to a watching world; people “see” and God is glorified!

For now, however, America continues to move steadily closer to God’s judgment. And there remains a prevailing carelessness among God’s people concerning this activity of God.

Revival tarries because God’s people will not repent, and we see no reason to do so. So, even if we recognize that the times are urgent and the spiritual climate is dark, and even if we cry unto God for a mighty revival, without our repentance He will refuse to hear us because we keep iniquity in our hearts.

We must, therefore, heed His call: “‘… Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 3:7b). We must repent and return to Him in holiness, love and obedience, or the nation will surely perish under the judgment of our sin! (2 Peter 3:9).

http://www.blackaby.org/FreshEncounterResources/assetts/Why_Revival_Tarries.pdf

Oh that the church would move…

Came across this article several weeks back. For some reason I keep coming back to this thought that one of the biggest reasons most of our churches don’t see any power manifested is because of how little prayer actually takes place, not to mention how little action actually accompanies those prayers. We hear preachers all the time quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 “IF my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” But it always seems as though these words get aimed somewhere else. God made it clear that it’s the church that desperaely needs humility, it’s the church that needs to be praying, it’s the church that needs to repent… so why doesn’t the church ACT? The key word to revival… notice it… one word… IF. We hear people say all the time that they are praying for revival, but I wonder if it’s not time to stop praying and start acting? I wonder if instead of singing songs we fell on our faces? I wonder if we truly grasped the reality of what it means to repent? It’s pretty clear to anyone with a brain that our nation, and it’s churches are moving away from God – so maybe it’s time to throw it in reverse? maybe it’s time for this nation to move backwards? Maybe it’s time to come back to where we left God? Maybe it’s time we did something with what we say we believe? Henry Blackaby, one of my heros and a modern day prophet, says often that revival doesn’t tarry because of the sins of the lost, it’s because of the sins of God’s people. I’ll never forget the time I heard him preach that, you could have heard a pin hit the floor. It got awfully quiet, due in large part to the reality that we all realized he was right, and we were all guilty as charged. I’ll leave you with a picture of days gone by, this proclamation was introduced into the US Congress back in March of 1863. Take some time to read over it and hear the heart of a God-fearing President. When you’re done, search your heart and ask God to show you where you need move, where you need to change, where you need to repent. When you get through praying… move… act.

Proclamation Appointing
a National Fast Day

Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863

Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln’s son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Now that’ll preach… until next time sports fans.//BCB20NINE

Glorieta Fuge – Friday AM Show

Glorieta Centrifuge 09