Is Your Church a Movement, Monument, or Mausoleum?
Ray Ortlund offers some wise and challenging reflections on the identity and aims of a local church. The implications of the following categories are huge and worth much reflection and prayer (especially for our flock at Westgate Church as we look eagerly to our new vision to be a gospel-centered community living every day on mission for Christ):
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Some years ago a friend of mine used these three simple categories to objectify the stages of a church’s rise and fall. Read more…
Philippians 4:2-7: A Gospel-Shaped Peace
As a comm
unity on mission for Christ, the church faces the daily temptation to let internal conflict divert our focus away from the outward cause of our mission—to make Christ known to the glory of God. It was this very threat among the church in ancient Philippi that moved Paul to direct his attention in Philippians 4:2-7 to a dispute between two women who had been laboring side-by-side with him in the gospel, but whose disagreement apparently threatened to impede that work. This passage is a stark reminder that we never outgrow our need for the gospel of Jesus. Rather, being faithful to our gospel mission in the world requires believing and applying the gospel to our relationships within. Read more…
Eric Metaxas: A Winsome and Prophetic Speech
Two days ago, Eric Metaxas offered an incredible keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. I strongly encourage you to watch it. Denny Burk provides a link to the video and offers the following summary:
Eric Metaxas had President Obama and distinguished guests in stitches as he shared his Christian testimony at the National Prayer Breakfast. He also shared some reflections about—you guessed it—Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He had some serious and prophetic words about the humanity of the unborn. He even spoke about having a biblical view of sexuality. All of this with the President sitting just a few feet away. This was a courageous talk delivered with winsomeness and joy.
Click here to see the video on Burk’s site. Emily Belz, of World Magazine, offers a fuller summary here.
Metaxas is the author of Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery and Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy.
HT: JT
Philippians 3:17-4:1: An Example Worth Following
The quick fix market is at the same time the most stable and unstable industry in America. At any given time, the market is saturated with countless new products that promise a fast and easy solution to your problem—whether it’s losing weight, building muscle, getting rich, digging out of debt, or finding the love of your life. They’re unstable because it doesn’t take long for each “magic bullet” to be exposed for the sham (or even scam) that it is. But despite this cycle of false promises and dashed hopes, this industry pulls in billions of dollars every year, always reinventing itself with new products for new problems holding out a new hope.
But we have to ask the question—if we know that life doesn’t really work this way, that problems are rarely fixable over night, and that promises that sound too good to be true almost always are, then why do so many people flock to buy these products and following their promoters with such devotion and zeal? Because this unstable industry is built on a stable feature of fallen humanity: the desire to get everything we want in the least possible time, effort, and pain. Or to put it in the language of Philippians 3:17-4:1, we face the constant temptation to follow people who promise the glory of the resurrection without the suffering of the cross. Read more…
Philippians 3:12-16: Passion and Perseverance
“Slow and steady wins the race” isn’t exactly Paul’s point in Philippians 3:12-16. In fact, it’s not close at all. But the hare is a good example of what Paul tells us not to do: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect . . . But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:12-14). You can’t win the race by acting as though you’ve already crossed the finish line when there’s still a lap to go. That’s just foolish. Neither can you win by not pressing hard (which is where the tortoise and hare analogy falls short). Read more…
Philippians 3:10-11: Fellowship with Christ
Sometimes we treat Jesus like an expensive shirt. We buy it because of the way it looks on us, but when we get home and read the tag that says “Dry Clean Only,” it ends up living in the back of the closet, or else crumpled at the bottom of the hamper for months on end. We bought it because of what we thought we would get out of it, but when we realized the actual cost, we weren’t interested anymore. So relating with Jesus becomes a self-serving transactional obligation: I do my part (be good); he does his part (make me happy), and nobody gets hurt.
Other times we treat Jesus like our collection of Seinfeld DVDs (or in my case, Psych). We spend regular time with them, we quote them often, we know some episodes frontward and back, but they don’t do a blessed thing to change the way we think or live. Similarly, our knowledge of Jesus becomes a sterile intellectualism. We might impress others, but it bears no transforming fruit in our lives.
I’m pretty sure Paul has something entirely different in mind when he exclaims in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ!” Read more…
When a Blended Service Doesn’t Really Blend
How to Maximize Gospel-Unity in the Gathered Worship of a Diverse Congregation
At Westgate Church we are excited to begin applying our recently articulated vision to be a gospel-centered community living each day on mission for Christ. One of the key areas we’re focusing on in early 2012 is our gathered worship. Read more…
Change: Obstacle or Opportunity?
I visit several blogs periodically (see the Blogroll to the right), and find much value in what I read. I have to say that as a young pastor trying to figure out what in the world I’m supposed to be doing as I shepherd a church in New England, I have found my friend and former colleague, Eric McKiddie’s blog, Pastoralized, to be one of the most consistently helpful. Eric is a scholar, pastor, and organizational wizard. He’s deeply committed to gospel ministry and the centrality of God’s Word, yet knows how to bring that to bear practically in the organizational details of a church or ministry.
Here’s an excerpt from his recent post on “What it Means to Be an Entrepreneurial Pastor” : Read more…
Philippians 3:4-9: When Loss is Gain
As Christians we have a dreadful habit of confusing God with Simon Cowell. (No doubt some would say Cowell has the same problem.) We turn the Christian life into a performance—with all the anxiety and fear of wondering what God thinks of our lives, followed either by the pride of success or the despair of failure. Though we acknowledge that salvation is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), we subtly begin to base our significance and value before God on who we are and what we do—hoping beyond hope to win his approval and keep up the show despite knowing all too well our own weakness and sin. Before too long, we’re more worried about what others think of us than God. So we leverage our status, draw attention to our strengths, and conceal our insufficiencies, seeking to gain and maintain the approval of others. Ironically, we’re not that unlike the kinds of counterfeit Christianities that the apostle Paul warned us against in Philippians 3:1-3—those who base their relationship with God on their heritage or hard work, instead of Jesus Christ.
Paul will have none of this nonsense, and he’ll not allow us to either. And so he continues in Philippians 3:4-9 to remind us that there is no gain in this world that compares to knowing Jesus and being counted righteous through faith in him. Read more…
Philippians 3:1-3: Counterfeit Christianities
The danger of a counterfeit is twofold: first, it deceives people into putting their hope and trust in something that can’t deliver. Second, it causes those who are trusting in the genuine article to become suspicious and doubt, no longer sure what to believe.
If counterfeit money is deadly to a national economy, then counterfeit Christianities—counterfeit expressions of the faith—are deadly to the spiritual wellbeing not only of individual Christians and churches, but to the whole world. Read more…
in the meantime 