At least once a month, someone writes me about their youth minister. What to do…what to do…what to do….with the zealous, sincere, yet wrong-headed young fellow who is about to split the church between the youth who would die for him and the adults who want to kill him.
Continue reading “Five Things That Youth Ministers Need To Hear (and you're afraid to tell them, so, OK, I'll do it.)”
Pictures. Story.
Let's Not Be Simplistic About CCM
I’m a big Andrew Sandlin fan, and I’ve never disagreed with him that I can remember, but Sandlin’s sudden enthusiasm for CCM needs a bit of tempering with reality.
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Paleo-Orthodox Baptists?: A Recommendation For My Readers
Wyman Richardson is doing something important. He’s exploring ways to relate his Baptist faith to the larger, ancient, “paleo-orthodox” Christian tradition. I think he’s onto something important, and I want my readers to check it out. Here’s a list of the current posts. More will be coming, so blogroll his site.
An iMonkish Quiet Time: My Most Helpful Devotional Resources
One of the blessings- and I truly mean that- of the Internet Monk web site has been the amount of mail I receive. Of the various kinds of mail, some always contains questions from readers. Often the writer is seeking advice, or resources or counsel. Depending on how appropriate it is for me to be involved, I try to answer- briefly- most of those notes. (I don’t do serious counseling over the internet, and I don’t compromise on that one at all.)
There are some questions, however, that I seldom or never get, and it troubles me. Why, for instance, do I seldom, if ever, receive questions about devotional resources? Answering that question is another post for another day. What I want to do today is ask and answer the question, in hopes that some of my readers will benefit.
“Dear iMonk, What devotional resources do you use and recommend?”
Glad you asked.
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One Stubborn Text That Refuses to Go Away: What Does The New Testament Teach About Unbelievers In Public Worship?
The following is my contribution to a question that is dominating discussion among evangelicals: Should worship be “seeker sensitive?” What kind of worship experience should we seek when we want to reach out to the unbelievers in our culture?
The New Testament was written by believers and to believers in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Its books and letters were written with a concern for the church and those who were part of the church. It is the mission, message and life-situation of churches that come before us in the New Testament, even when such matters seem far away from the focus of a text.
One of the most influential books in my own approach to the Bible was Dr. Raymond Brown’s little “detective” book, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind. Brown looks at the clues present throughout the New Testament that tell us what kind of churches produced and preserved the New Testament material. He suggests their unique concerns, their sometimes obvious (and less obvious) differences, and their particular histories from the time of the apostles into the second century. Brown’s study leaves us with the undeniable fact that when we read any New Testament book, we are glimpsing and listening to not only inspired scripture, but part of the history of the Christian movement.
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Spurgeon and Osteen: The Tale of Inaugural Sermons
Charles Spurgeon preached two sermons at key moments in his ministry. The first was his first sermon at New Park Street. Just a boy, he had come to the old church of John Gill, determined that the God of the Gospel would once again be heard. His topic was “The Immutability of God.”
The second, and in many ways more important, was the first sermon in the new Metropolitan Tabernacle. Spurgeon knew he was sounding a keynote. No longer a boy preacher, but a man with undreamed of success in his hand, Spurgeon sounded out a clear note on what would be heard at the new Tabernacle:
I would propose (and O may the Lord grant us grace to carry out that proposition, from which no Christian can dissent), I would propose that the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist. You have there (pointing to the baptistery) substantial evidence that I am not ashamed of that ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ; but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must reply: “It is Jesus Christ.” My venerable predecessor, Dr. Gill, has left a body of divinity admirable and excellent in its way; but the body of divinity to which I would pin and bind myself for ever, God helping me, is not his system of divinity or any other human treatise, but Christ Jesus, who is the sum and substance of the gospel; who is in himself all theology, the incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life.
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The Sanity Verses
Sometimes, I don’t need inspiration. What I need is just my sanity. I don’t need verses that tell me I’m about to see a miracle. I need something that says God wants me to make it to tomorrow, and still be able to be useful. Sometimes I need to know that God doesn’t always want me to be a martyr, but that he wants me to stick around, survive and serve him again.
Sometimes, I don’t need to know how to succeed in ministry. I need to know that there is something on the other side of failure. I need to know that the cause of Christ matters, but that I matter, too.
I’ve collected some passages that fall into that category. I’m calling them “The Sanity Verses.” All of them contain something that we don’t hear enough about in descriptions of ministry: the comforting truth that, in the midst of all the important, spiritual stuff that matters and in the middle of rejection and failure in ministry…..I matter. I matter, too.
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War of the Worldviews: Temptations for the Church in the Information Age
This is one of the longer pieces I’ve posted on IM recently, and is an attempt to understand some of what we see going on among evangelicals these days through the lens of some basic sociology. Is the behavior of many evangelicals an indicator of Biblical faithfulness….or cultural fear? Are conservative churches growing for the reasons they claim? Or are some churches growing- and not growing- for the same reasons Muslims and Motorcycle Clubs are growing?
How does the information age affect the church…and those who believe the church is God’s project in history?
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When Loving You Is Killing Me: Thoughts On Pastoring The Small Church
Almost every young preacher I know wants to start a new church. It may be the church growth emphasis at denominational headquarters. It may be a desire to reach postmoderns. Or it may be a desire to skip all painful garbage Hansen describes in his story. There are a lot of reasons I like new church plants, and this is near the top: No one is ready to blow up the church over baseball caps just yet.
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The Internet Monk Archives 