Weekends Are For Kids

Joshua and I were watching the football game together when we saw a recruiting commercial for the US military. The video showed a helicopter piloting its way into enemy territory, flying down low, and soldiers jumping out with night vision goggles on. They found their fellow soldiers who had apparently been trapped and got them on board. Then the helicopter flew away.

Joshua let out a deep and long, “Aaaaaaawesome!”

Then we had a little chat:

Me: “You know, Joshua, that’s what Wesley’s daddy does for his job.”

Joshua: “What?”

Me: “He flies helicopters in the army. He’s probably flying one right now.”

Joshua: “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Me: “Nope. You know how sometimes you come to daddy’s office where he works? Well, that helicopter is kind of like Mr. Mark’s office. That’s what he does for his job.”

Long pause here…

Joshua: “Maybe you can do that someday.”

Probably not, Joshua. But I can type 70 words a minute. That’s something, right?

Fridays Are For One Question

I’ve spent a good deal of time traveling this fall. The time I’ve recently spent in airports has taught me one thing above all else:

Cinnabon puts an addictive chemical in their rolls that draws weary travelers like moths to a flame.

Therefore, I ask you this week’s question:

“Is there anything that smells better than Cinnabon in an airport?”

**The goal of “One Question Friday” is simple: To show that everyone has something funny, engaging, creative, and worthwhile to say. So comment away! Be real. Be creative. Think hard. And check back to see how others answered the question.

Why the Dallas Cowboys Are Like the Church

I have a love / hate relationship with the Dallas Cowboys. I grew up in Texas during the heyday of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin. And yes, I will freely admit that I chose to ignore the fact that there was a lot of cocaine being snorted in those days.

But the Dallas Cowboys have fallen on hard times. As I have watched their games this year, I found myself looking at them thinking, “This is a team that has no identity. They look like they’re lost even when they’re winning.”

That seems to be the problem to me – they have little team identity or definition. Oh, they’ve got a great new building, and a good crowd that shows up to see them play, but they as a whole don’t really seem like they’re committed to anything. They don’t seem like they want to win. In essence, Jerry Jones has adopted a philosophy that bigger is always better, and that you can pay for alot of talent and throw it out there on the field.

This, in my opinion, is also a problem in the church at some level.

Yesterday I posted about the $130 million building campaign of a church that is, ironically, in the same city where the Cowboys play. Maybe it’s a Texas thing, but these things feel very similar to me. Regarding the same building campaign, fellow-blogger Jared Wilson had this to say:

What is at stake is what church is. In the building Q&A linked above, we find this gem: “[T]he glass walls have an evangelistic effect: people walking by have a view in from the street and feel drawn in.”

In the same way a hobo on the sidewalk might press his face against the window of a fancy restaurant in a Norman Rockwell painting, no doubt.

Nobody should fault FBC Dallas or anybody else for building a building. But this isn’t a building. This, and a bunch of other stuff, is Bible Belt Disneyland. This is evangelicalism with more cowbell. This is Field of Dreams attractional church. And it stinks to high heaven. I was directed to a church website once while doing some research that had in its mission statement this sentence: “We will be a missional church, reaching out to the community to invite them to come see what we’re doing at ___________.”

Not go and tell.
Come and see is the “mission” of megachurchianity. Which is why you need evangelistic windows.

He’s right. This is a problem. And it’s not new. Christians have always looked for any reason and any justification not to go. While this may not be true of FBC Dallas, it’s certainly been true before. We try to take texts like “you are the city on the hill” and use it as a justification for actually creating a city on a hill. The whole meaning of that text (right next to the call to be salt out in the world, incidentally) is not that we should have such impressive churches that people will be drawn to them. It’s so that we should realize that we are meant to be light in dark places. Actually out there in dark places.

Maybe the Cowboys really are America’s team.

The New FBC Dallas

Click here to watch a series of videos detailing the massive and spectacular renovations to First Baptist Dallas. It’s a pretty amazing vision, one about which I have mixed feelings. Here’s the brief description from the site:

“First Baptist’s proposed new state-of-the art, 21st Century campus will be a re-creation, not a renovation, of a facility that is united in function and design; open and accessible; and easily identifiable as a church. The campus will embrace the church’s historic past while boldly asserting its place in the Dallas skyline. Amid a wave of downtown revitalization, the new campus will complete the circle of resources meeting the mind, body and spiritual needs of Dallas residents.”

After watching the videos, I’d love to know what you think: Too much? Or a great expression of the grandeur of God?

(HT: TWax)

Wait, Hope, and Trust

Isaiah 40:31 is a pretty well known verse. It reads in the NIV like this:

But those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

It’s interesting to me, though, that the word “hope” is translated in a number of different ways in different translations. The NAS renders the same word as “wait.” The HCSB uses “trust.” In English, those 3 words have very different meanings.

“Waiting” is something that you have to do as part of life. It’s not necessarily active. In fact, it’s downright boring—a necessary evil between where you were and where you wait to be.

“Hoping” and “trusting” are much more active words in English, and have a much different connotation. While you may “wait” for a cheeseburger, you “hope” because you “trust” that something better is coming than the situation which you are currently facing.

It’s true that both “trusting” and “hoping” are associated with waiting by necessity. If you didn’t have to wait for anything, you wouldn’t really be hoping or trusting in anything, because you would have everything you need and want right when you need and want it.

But for the Christ-follower, waiting, hoping, and trusting are linked together by more than necessity. They’re linked together because we don’t wait like other people wait. We wait actively. We wait with expectation.

It’s not waiting for our incomes to go up. It’s not waiting for the disease to go away. It’s not waiting for things to get “better,” as some understand what is better. But it is waiting for the Lord to do what He has promised to do in any and all circumstances:

Good.

That’s what He’s promised to do. Good in us, and good through us. When we wait, we have our heads on a swivel, constantly looking for the myriad of little and big ways in which the redemption of the Lord comes over and over again.

Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

(HT: Z)

Friday’s Are For One Question

Today is October 30. Tomorrow is the anniversary of when Martin Luther got nasty. On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a document to the door of Castle Church in  Wittenberg, Germany. The document contained 95 theses that were essentially Luther’s critique of the church in his day. That document went on to spark the Protestant Reformation.

The document spurred discussion and action – a desire to return and study Scripture and to live the purity of the gospel, that we are saved by Christ alone, through faith alone. So this Friday’s question hopefully won’t turn into a gripe session, but instead will spur us on to the same goal. This week’s question:

“What statement would you nail to the door of the American church?”

Here’s a couple from me to get us started:

1. The Bible is a book about Jesus, not about how to have a more successful or pain free life.

2. We must not preach that salvation is by grace alone but live as if sanctification is by works alone.

3. Churches must provide adequate time in the schedule of their pastor for appropriate study and preparation of sermons.

**The goal of “One Question Friday” is simple: To show that everyone has something funny, engaging, creative, and worthwhile to say. So comment away! Be real. Be creative. Think hard. And check back to see how others answered the question.

Invictus

Clint Eastwood + Matt Damon + Morgan Freeman = Invictus

How good does this look?

From director Clint Eastwood, “Invictus” tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

What the Atheists Are Really Saying

“The highly anticipated documentary, Collision, featuring debate and dialogue between renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson releases today. For those of you who might not have seen a preview, you can do so below. Personally, I love the way in which it is presented. Not exactly your typical, sometimes boring, debate format. I’m sure you will enjoy this DVD and is probably a great means of dialogue with those around you who are not Christians.”

Having read and watched clips from the movie, it’s sure to be interesting and thought-provoking, but what grabbed my attention was this quote from atheist Christopher Hitchens about Christian Doug Wilson:

Wilson isn’t one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just ‘metaphors.’ He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn’t waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he ‘allows’ it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing.

How about that? There’s no beating around the bush with Wilson. He knows what he believes and he can have an intelligent conversation about it. He’s not trying to back-door Jesus at all; rather, he’s up front and honest about the gospel. And that honesty and sincerity makes him respectable, even to someone who so radically disagrees with his world view.

I can’t help but wonder if perhaps one of the reasons why the gospel is so often dismissed as fantasy is because we try and water it down to make it more palatable. The truth is it’s not palatable. It’s foolishness.

I was reminded of what Madeline L’Engle wrote about the nature of Christianity:

“We try to be too reasonable about what we believe. What I believe is not reasonable at all. In fact it’s hillariously impossible.”

From Vitamin Z:

The Beautiful Monotony of the Gospel

When I got to seminary, I bristled at the idea that we as preachers are to preach the gospel in every sermon. That sounded boring to me. And after all, how do I preach the gospel from the book of Exodus? Or Amos? People in that time hadn’t even heard the name of Jesus yet. But as you read the Bible you begin to see that it is a book about Jesus, regardless of whether He is explicitly named or not.

Preaching the gospel all the time, then, is the biblically faithful thing to do. But what about it being boring? Doesn’t it get motonomous? Jared Wilson comments on this fact, first quoting G.K. Chesterton:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

When we “get” the gospel for what it really is — the power to save, the most thrilling news there could be, the declaration that God’s Son died for us and then came back to life! to be the risen Lord and supreme King of the universe, not just the entry fee for heaven but the currency for all of life — we revel in the new creation it unleashes in its wake at every turn. We never get tired of hearing it. It’s the new song that never gets old. “Play it again, play it again!” we will cry.

Gospel wakened people have been given the strength enough to exult in the beautiful monotony of the gospel.
The further good news is that those who are dulled in their senses will not be further dulled by the gospel. In fact, only the gospel can deliver them from their dulled state. No amount of fog and lasers will do it.

Read the rest of Jared’s fine post here.