Lord Save Us

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

I spent this morning watching the documentary, Lord Save Us From Your Followers.  I was prompted by a note from a friend and, despite it not being on my agenda for the day, I was intrigued.

Once again, I am not sure where I have been. This film came out over a year ago.  Some of it looked familiar, so I may have caught part of it on GMC or some other television cable network.  But for whatever reason, what I saw before did not capture my interest enough. Perhaps I had an initial wrong impression.  Perhaps I was just busy and could not watch the whole thing before. But even if that were the case, I am not sure why this went out of mind so quickly that I did not seek it out when I had the time to check it out.

The driving questions about this exploration of the Culture Wars in the United States is: Why is the Gospel of Love Dividing Our Nation? That is a great question.

Here are a few brief thoughts that come to my mind having just finished watching:

  • Ouch!  This cuts close to home.  This film clearly reveals how we as Christians (and I personally) are at fault for much of the perception the UnBelieving Culture has about Christianity and Christians.
  • I was encouraged by the responses of those who are opposed to Christianity and Christians when a Believer was willing to engage them in an honest discussion. I was moved by the power of humility, compassion, repentance and confession by the Believer. Apparently Jesus knew something when he commanded his followers to first take the plank out of our own eyes before confronting others about the specs in theirs.  (Matthew 7.5) Paul, too, when he instructed the Galatians to “gently restore” those who were astray of the way of God, but that they should be careful that they did not stumble in their own sin in in the process. (Galatians 6.1)
  • I am hopeful of a positive impact. But our strategic priorities must be in order. First is the reformation of the Church, including widespread repentance of God’s people for our failure to seek genuine righteousness.  Only later can we expect to have any positive cultural impact.  (2 Chronicles 7.14)

Now for the qualifications:

I know some who read this blog will be inclined to immediately dismiss the message behind this film because some of the theological premises expressed by those interviewed are questionable (to say it kindly), because it is not a theological discussion, and/or because some of the Christians represented do not reflect your tradition. (For the most part, this is true of mine too. Only John Perkins comes to mind who I know to share a similar theological heritage.)  But to dismiss this film for any of those reasons is a sad mistake.  At the very least recognize that this film depicts how a wide spectrum of our culture views us.

This documentary runs 1:42, so to watch it takes some time.  I suppose it would not lessen the appreciation to break it up into segments.  But I do encourage honest Believers, those interested in engaging in holistic mission to take the time, however you break it up.

To watch, click: Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

Counterfeit Gods

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

In his reletively recent book, Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller explains what a counterfeit god is and describes how to make one – as we are so prone to do:

A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.  And idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought.  It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing.  It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even sucess in the  Christian ministry.

Keller also asserts:

When your meaning in life is to fix someone else’s life, we may call it “codependency” but it is really idolatry.  An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel significant and secure.”  Introduction, p. xviii)

I greatly apprecialte Keller delving into this subject. While few people are likely to identify themselves as Idolotors, it is an affliction that plagues us all.  

John Calvin was correct when he declared: “Our hearts are little idol factories”.  Understanding how we each make our individual idols, and identifying how they influence our actions and thoughts, is a major step toward diplacing them.

Is Church Growth a Biblical Expectation?

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

I was intrigued by the insights of Jay Childs in an article he wrote for Leadership Journal.  The article, titled Church Growth vs. Church Seasons, focuses on the American fascination with large numbers.  After telling some of his own story, Jay makes three primary observations:

  1. Our Situation is Not Unusual
  2. Non-Stop Numerical Growth is NOT a Biblical Expectation
  3. Healthy Churches Go Through Life-Cycles of Growth, Pruning, Decline, Blessing

While I appreciated the whole article, it was the insights of the second point that most resonated with me:

Ever since eminent missiologist Donald McGavran first published his seminal thoughts on church growth, American churches have often fixated on numerical growth. The basic assumption seems to be this: all churches should be growing numerically, all the time, and something is wrong if your church isn’t.

But as I’ve searched the New Testament and read countless other books on the subject, this assumption seems to be alien to the Bible. There is simply no biblical expectation that a local congregation will continually grow in size, uninterrupted. That seems to be an American presupposition forced onto the Scriptures.

If anything, Jesus told us to expect the opposite. He did promise that the gates of hell would not stand against the church, but he also commended the church in Philadelphia for standing firm though they had “little power.” He never criticizes any of the seven churches in Revelation for not accumulating numbers. He does scold, however, for moral and theological compromise.

Lesslie Newbigin writes in The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, “Reviewing the teaching of the New Testament, one would have to say, on the one hand, there is joy in the rapid growth of the church in the earliest days, but on the other, there is no evidence that numerical growth of the church is a matter of primary concern. There is no shred of evidence in Paul’s letters to suggest that he judged the churches by the measure of their success in rapid numerical growth. [Nowhere is there] anxiety or an enthusiasm about the numerical growth of the church.”

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13 Letters

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

There is no stretch of an imagination that would cause anyone to classify where I live as Urban.  BUT I still appreciate what the folk at Reach Life have developed.

13 Letters is a curriculum designed with Urban Youth in mind.  Taking the substance of the Paul’s letters, this curriculum applies Sound Doctrine to the lives of Urban Youth.  There is also an accompanying HipHop album that serves as a survey of the Pauline Epistles. Listen to the songs:

  1. Romans
  2. 1 Corinthians
  3. 2 Corinthians
  4. Galatians
  5. Ephesians
  6. Philippians
  7. Colossians
  8. 1 Thessalonians
  9. 2 Thessalonians
  10. 1 Timothy
  11. 2 Timothy
  12. Titus
  13. Philemon

Each of these songs is a remarkably faithful and in-depth exposition of the respective letter.  In addition to those songs written to reflect each of the Pauline Epistles, there are a handful of additional songs:

These songs can be purchased or downloaded from Amazon: 13 Letters

Questions of Prophets, Priests, and Kings

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Some time ago I introduced the concept of Tri-perspectivalism, the recognition that every Church ought to reflect the three offices of Christ: Prophet, Priest, and King.  Each person, or Christian leader, has a natural inclination toward one of these perspectives, but all three are equally necessary to reflect Christ in our Body.

There are many questions that can be, and have been, asked. Perhaps among the most practical is: How do I know which I am?  To answer that question there is no substitute for experience – exprience in service and experience of genuine relationships.  But questions may still remain if we are not certain what we are looking for. 

In an address from the 2009 Acts 29 Bootcamp, Darrin Patrick offers the following questions. Patrick suggests that persons inclined to each perspective tend to ask reflective questions:

Prophet

  • WHAT does the Bible say?
  • WHERE are we going because of what the Bible says?

King

  • HOW are we going to do that?
  • WHY are they/we doing that?

Priest

  • WHO?  (Priests are all about people and shepherding.)

Do you find yourself frequently asking any of these questions? Perhpas it is an indication of how God has wired you.

Praying for Forgiveness

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

In the title song of Toby Keith‘s  movie and soundtrack, Broken Bridges, the first line of the chorus is:

Here I am, prayin’ for forgiveness… 

If you’ve seen the movie on CMT it makes sense. It is a story of a guy facing up to his past mistakes and the people he has hurt.  It is a process of reconciling broken relationships.

But this line also begs a question: Why “pray” for forgiveness?

Puritan Pastor Richard Sibbes considered this issue. Sibbes posed the question, then proposed a profound and practical response:

Q. Why do we pray for forgiveness?

A. We pray for clear evidence of what we have.

I don’t know if you have ever wondered about this, but Sibbes’ question is a good one.  If, as we profess, Jesus’ death and resurrection secured forgiveness of sin past, present, and future for all who Believe, then what is the point in asking for it if forgiveness is already granted.  Is this merely a politeness – somewhat like saying “Excuse me” after a burp?

What Sibbes answers makes great sense. The issue is not what we do or do not have. The issue is what we experience.  We do not need to pray to get forgiveness.  Those who are trusting Christ already have it.  What we need is the renewed experience, the realization, of that forgiveness already granted.

Our perspective is limited. Our feeling of assurance is often fleeting.  Like a child momentarily separated from his parents may feel lost, abandoned, and even alienated, the Christian may experience a twinge of anxiety when we realize all over again that, though we have been justified, we are still sinners.  (To not have this “uh-oh” feeling would make me wonder if someone has a conscience.)  

We know the child is not abandoned just because the parents are out of his/her line of sight. And the believer should know that God is faithful to his promise without condition. As   we are told in 2 Timothy:

[Even] if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

What is in view inthis verse is not the person who is not a Believer, but the Christian who is not appropriating faith at a particular moment. In such moments we are functionally like the child who fears the parents are “lost” or gone.  And unless we seriously deceive ourselves, we must admit that we all have these moments – many of them. This is especially true at moments when we are aware of and grieved by our sin and disobedience.

What Sibbes points out at those moments – moments when we reflexively cry out for forgiveness – what we are really asking for is not so much for forgiveness, but a new dose of evidence of our forgiveness that we cling to for comfort and to dry our tears. 

Let me finish with this: All the evidence we need is found at the Cross.  The evidence is the same today as it was yesterday; and it will be the same tomorrow as it is today.

Romans 5.8 reminds us:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And John practically applies this to us in 1 John 1:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Cutting-Edge Way to Reach the Un-churched

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Now the probing question for you and me:

“When was the last time you invited an un-churched person to church?”

We in the church are searcning and agonizing over ways to reach the lost… yet research indicates a simple invitation may be the most cutting-edge approach we can employ.

– Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door

8 Qualities of Healthy Churches

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Christian A. Schwarz, head of the Institute for Natural Church Development in Germany, conducted reportedly the most comprehensive church-growth study ever, drawn from more than one thousand churches in thirty-two countries. His study revealed eight qualities in healthy churches.

1. Empowering Leadership

Leaders of growing churches … do not use lay workers as “helpers” in attaining their goals and fullfilling their visions. Rather, leaders invert the pyramid of authority so they assist Christians to attain the spiritual potential God has for them.

2. Gift Oriented Ministry

When Christians serve in their area of giftedness, they generally function less in their own strength and more in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, ordinary people can accomplish the extraordinary!

3. Passionate Spirituality

The concept of spiritual passion and the widespread notion of the walk of faith as “performing one’s duty” seem to be mutually exclusive.

4. Functional Structures

Anyone who accepts this perspective will continually evaluate to what extent church structures improve the self-organization of the church. Elements not meeting this standard (such as discouraging leadership structures, inconvenient worship-service times, demotivating financial concepts) will be changed or eliminated.

5. Inspiring Worship Service

Services may target Christians or non-Christians, the style may be liturgical or free, the language may be “churchy” or secular–it makes no difference…. Whenever the Holy Spirit is truly at work (and his presence is not merely presumed), he will have a concrete effect upon the way a worship service is conducted.

6. Holistic Small Groups

[These groups] go beyond just discussing Bible passages to applying its message to daily life. In these groups, members are able to bring up issues and questions that are immediate personal concerns.

7. Need Oriented Evangelism

The key … is for the local congregation to focus its evangelistic efforts on the questions and needs of non-Christians. This “need-oriented” approach is different from “manipulative programs.”

8. Loving Relationships

Unfeigned, practical love has a divinely generated magnetic power far more effective than evangelistic programs, which depend almost entirely on verbal communication. People do not want to hear us talk about love, they want to experience how Christian love really works.

Every Church Missional

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Every church is called to be a “missional church”. The fact that we have turned the word mission into an adjective testifies to the American church’s frayed ecclesiology. A non-missional church is not a church in the first place, but in a culture largely devoid of theological vocabulary, this language has become necessary to remind us that the church exists not for ourselves, but for the world.

– Kenda Creasy Dean, in Almost Christian