My Thoughts on Today’s Southern Baptist Convention Meeting 6:23:09

ll1. Those of you who have various versions of autocratic church governments that never give the ordinary hoi polloi the microphone may look down your noses at allowing people to make motions to ban books, adopt flags and boycott Pepsi, but our circus has a lot to commend it over your imitation of the Vatican. Public perception has to go out the window, but meaning what you say about congregationalism, messenger representation and cooperation from the ground up outweighs the spectacle. No one will ever stand up in most of your churches and say something really stupid, and that’s a shame, because the pastor shouldn’t be the only one who gets to have fun.

2. The younger leaders of the SBC are taking on power in a denomination that has been, for the most part, attempting to lock the doors and hope they would go away. Well, they didn’t. They came to the convention and voted in a mechanism to take an urgent look at what we are doing for the one thing that holds us together: a commitment to carry out the Great Commission. What you saw today was a serious changing of the power grid in the SBC. The vast numbers of obedient old-guard messengers are never again going to show up and make the SBC into a wholly owned subsidiary of the culture war or the Jerry Vines version of the SBC. This is now a denomination that has given itself clear and simple instructions: Get to the task of world missions, not the task of building a denominational culture.Continue reading “My Thoughts on Today’s Southern Baptist Convention Meeting 6:23:09”

Open Mic At The iMonk Cafe: Responding to the Whoppers

micaYour Christian friend has been staying up late on the internet, listening to Christian short wave and now comes up with a collection of completely bizarre, totally mythological pieces of anti-factual, conspiratorial nonsense—“They drilled a hole to hell,”….”Obama is a Muslim”…..”NASA has proven the sun stands still”….”9-11 was prophesied in Ezekiel”….”Christianity is going to be illegal by the next election.”

What do you do?

Do you correct them?
Do you leave it alone?
Do you write down Snopes.com on a card and give it to them?
Do you laugh? Weep?
Do you top it with a stranger story?

What is the right response to ignorance, factual error and sweeping untruths?

A Person Not A Label

mouthUPDATE: The comments on this post are closed. If they are opened again, I will only publish DIRECT responses to the post. Speeches about specific sexual sins and how much we need to shout about them will not be published. I am embarassed by a good bit of what is on here now, but it illustrates PERFECTLY what I wrote about in the post: we are willing to reduce sexual sinners to nothing more than behavior if it makes us feel righteous. God help us.

And I’m not sure what the gay lifestyle is, really. The gay people I know have the same boring, day-to-day, bill-paying suburban lifestyle I do. They just do it with someone of the same sex. -Jjoe, IM commenter

Categorizing people by their sins, or by any single characteristic, is a risky business. We ought to consider the dangerous edge we walk when we do it.

There’s something very uncomfortable for me when Christians begin talking about “single issue” human beings. Even when the persons being discussed are labeling themselves with a single label. It bothers me.

I realize there are times we have no choice but to talk about people in terms of a single issue, characteristic or behavior. But does anyone else have the same feeling that I do: if you aren’t careful, you are on the road to dehumanization.

There are, for example, a group of people who have decided to identify themselves primarily by their GLBT sexual behavior. I understand how, in THEIR worldview, that makes sense. In my worldview, it’s got big problems all it’s own.Continue reading “A Person Not A Label”

iMonk at Patrol Mag on the SBC 09: Change or Die

icon_red1thumbnail2I’ve been a supporter of David Sessions’ outstanding webmag “Patrol Magazine” from the beginning. We need to do more linkage from over there, because he’s doing outstanding journalism.

David asked me to write some perspective on the current Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. If you don’t know much about the current issues facing the Southern Baptist Convention, this should give you a decent overview of what’s going on this week. Apparently “Coming Evangelical Collapse” has already been quoted.

Read: The SBC: Change or Die.

Thoughts and Questions for Parents On Father’s Day

troubled-teen-boy-hat-sitting1It’s Father’s Day weekend, one of the Hallmark calendar days, but worth at least some thoughtful consideration. I shared of few memories of my dad on Podcast #145. In this post I’d like to be a bit less reflective and a lot more meddling.

I’ve worked around parents of teenagers my entire adult life. For all but 4 years of my ministry I was a youth ministry specialist in some setting or another. The four years I was a pastor, I was more involved with parents than ever.

I have incredible respect for those who parent teenagers, no matter who they are or what they believe. It’s a brutal job that can crush you into tiny pieces and lift you up to lofty places of joy.

I’ve stood with parents at the casket of teenagers who have died of cancer and accidents.

I’ve been called to the home of a family who just learned that their middle school daughter was on the verge of death from alcohol poisoning.

I’ve sat in the living room as a daughter told her parents she was pregnant. (A girl no one would have believed was sexually active.) I was there when she gave up her twins to adoptive parents.Continue reading “Thoughts and Questions for Parents On Father’s Day”

Internet Monk Radio Podcast #145

podcast_logo.gifThis week: Changes in American students. Father’s Day Remembrances.

Support the IM sponsors: New Reformation Press. New products available: New music and DVDs. Emmaus Retreat Center. A great place for your next group or individual retreat. E3 Sudan is church planting and training pastors in the Sudan.

Andrew Peach on the Demise of Fatherhood
Wyman Richardson’s Father’s Day Remembrance.

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Thoughts on Seeking The Kingdom of God

fishermen“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

1. You won’t get very far in following Jesus if you don’t have some idea of what “the Kingdom of God” means, because Jesus talks about it constantly, and commands you to seek it.

2. Most Christian spirituality has practically pursued this as meaning, “Go to the church and all you need to know of the Kingdom is there.” That’s a very inadequate answer, and you don’t have to be an exceptionally deep Christian to know that.

3. The church should be pointing at the Kingdom all the time, both inside and outside of its own boundaries.

4. The church should be actively helping you to seek the Kingdom of God. For starters, the church should know that it isn’t the Kingdom and should be able to keep you from making that mistake.Continue reading “Thoughts on Seeking The Kingdom of God”

Riffs: 06:18:09 Bill Kinnon’s Worship Lament/My Essay “Looney Tunes”

carsingBill Kinnon looks back on his contribution to being a worship leader and has a bit of lament. He notes what we’re now hearing and not hearing. A post well-worth reading.

Several years ago, I wrote a critique of some of the most often heard theology of contemporary praise and worship music. I love good contemporary worship. I don’t like what you hear in between some of the songs.

I haven’t put this essay over here in the current post format, so some of you may have never read this one. Remember, it’s an oldie, with quite a few references to things that aren’t true anymore (like me leading worship at a church on weekends.)

iMonk 101: Looney Tunes: “Praise and Worship Theology” is goofy

I defend myself from false accusations

Nothing stings the iMonk quite like the charge of hypocrisy. As a man of principle, I seek to avoid having the wagging finger of the disappointed public in my face, accusing me of phoniness.

So I must answer a recent charge made by a nameless autograph seeker who was briefly allowed inside the Internet Monk compound. With shock and not-a-little awe, this friend observed the Monk’s collection of contemporary Praise and Worship music. “Hey! I thought you were, like, really down on all this contemporary Christian music? How come you’re listening to it in the same office where you write all that stuff saying it’s bad for the church?”Continue reading “Riffs: 06:18:09 Bill Kinnon’s Worship Lament/My Essay “Looney Tunes””