UPDATE: Please post on the question ONLY. Do not use this to complain about styles of music.

Catholics, etc can go have a coffee. This is for evangelicals and others to whom it applies.

Here’s my question:

“Who wants 30-40+ minutes of music in worship? Who? Why? I mean…explain this to me. I seriously do not get it.”

Mark 10:46 Then they reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting beside the road.47 When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him.
But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
49 When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.”
So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” 50 Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.
51“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.
“My rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!”
52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.

Sunday’s lectionary lesson for the Gospel is a little “blah” as a preaching text. I’ve heard healing and miracle stories allegorized, turned into prosperity Gospel texts and used for every kind of questionable lesson on faith. I think we can do better.

I have some individual ideas, but none of them are really revving my preaching motor this week. So you take a swing of the bat.

What can we do with Mark 10:46-52 as a text for preaching the Gospel? Ideas. Illustrations. Applications. Themes. I’m open for suggestions.

Testimonies about miracles. I’m not much on them.

At least once a year or so, I’ll have someone want to tell our ministry of mostly non-Christian kids a “miracle” testimony of being healed, delivered from drugs, saved from prison, etc.

I obviously don’t say “no,” but I really struggle with this kind of thing on Biblical grounds. Jesus didn’t primarily use miracles to evangelize, but to show the presence of the Kingdom. It was present miracles, not stories. I know it’s common in mission settings. I know Pentecostals love it. But I have to be honest: I’m pretty uneasy- on Biblical grounds- about how we tell those stories and recall those events. The message- overt and overheard- is often sub-Gospel. Our sinful, prideful, self-seeking need for attention gets in there as well. You know what happens. I’ve heard some testimonies that would send a lie detector up in smoke.

I’ll hear it over and over: “He’s the same God now as he was then, and he can do the same miracle for you he did for me. Just have faith.” Lots of scriptures to quote about believing, bold prayer, etc. I’m not much to take those verses and run. I’ve been jaded, but then the Bible gives me reason to be cautious. Miracles have their place, but we shouldn’t have them on the loudspeaker all the time.

One of the guys who gave his healing testimony was dead in a few months. I don’t want to even check on the testimonies of those saying they were delivered from drugs and crime. I know the score. Averages in that game aren’t encouraging. [Continue reading]

Here’s today’s HYPOTHETICAL topic. A very common situation.

A couple asks to join your church. Well…..a non-married, living together 5 years, parenting 2 of her kids couple asks to join your church. They aren’t married because, basically, of not wanting to lose substantial child support. When that runs out next year, they tell you they will get married and they appear very serious about that.

They’ve visited your church for months. The kids are in the programs. They are in a small group. They are a great family. They just aren’t legally a married couple.

What do you do? [Continue reading]

It’s a simple question for this edition of open mic.

Preaching is ________________. And/Or Preaching is not ________________.

Don’t write a novel or even a short story. Keep it compact and to the point.

I especially hope that this open mic question will involve as many non-preachers as possible. Preachers might not know everything there is to know about preaching. Ya think?

The mic is yours. Feel free to offer answers and to discuss answers in the threaded comments.

UPDATE II: McKnight on Translation Tribalism.

UPDATE: Why the LCMS choose the ESV. I doubt that it was the Piper endorsement.

I have this nagging feeling that the English Standard Version isn’t as good a translation as I’ve previously thought.

My experience with the NLT has me in major regrets that I’ve got my students using the ESV, that there isn’t a cheap textbook version of the NLT, etc.

I’m using the NLT in preaching most of the time, but when I read the ESV for personal study, sermon preps, classes, etc…..something just isn’t right. I’m wondering if I’ve been “marketed.” That is, I’ve bought the impressive ESV marketing version of itself, but the translation isn’t living up to its own press.

Is it really clunky….and awkward? Do people really have problems reading it? Is it stylistically difficult? Does it do all of the things it accuses other translations of NOT doing? Is it just not up to its own press clippings? [Continue reading]

First read the story of Christian protestors at a Marilyn Manson concert. (Slow…be patient)

Then, savor the irony: If you read Manson’s biography, he’s the product of Christian parenting and fundamentalist education.

Marilyn Manson was born as Brian Hugh Warner in Canton, Ohio, the son of Barb Wyer and Hugh Jack Warner. His father was a Roman Catholic and his mother was an Episcopalian. According to his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, …He was raised in his mother’s religion. Warner attended Heritage Christian School from first grade to tenth grade.

Instead of owning up to one of the unfortunate possible results of fundamentalism, Christians are protesting and denouncing Manson.

So, imagine through the magic of the Internet Monk Research Department, you are able to place an ad on a website that will be read by everyone who attended the Manson concert and saw the protestors.

What would your ad say? (Limit: 350 words)

UPDATE: Piper “clarifies” his tornado comments by referring to his bout with prostate cancer. The message of every event is repentance: “That is the message of every calamity (Luke 13:1-5). And every sunny day (Romans 2:4).” It seems to me we are simply not going to get past the issue of how we can say, as God’s word, that a specific event has a specific, divinely connected, design that I can speak to you: THIS happened so that you would do THIS. As opposed to THIS happened, you SHOULD do THIS, but I can’t say the two things are connected causally. Cause of tornado = message or Cause of tornado = weather systems/ Application of tornado in Christian worldview = repent, etc.

An event has an application, and God has a Word, but making the various aspects of weather in a particular place a clear word from God is raising a human pastoral application up to the level where all the problems we’ve discussed become real problems for many people. Such connections will cause many to stumble in their faith as they wonder “what was God’s Word to me in taking my child? Why did he have to speak that way instead of another way?” Piper clearly, WILL answer that question for suffering people out of his high views of God ordering all that comes to pass. Many other Christians will not. It’s the difference between a pastor saying, “in the tornado, I see a lesson” and saying “in the tornado, God is saying to you.” There’s a significance difference between these two expressions. I, and many others, frequently call to mind the lessons of providence, but they are the connections we see, not the connections God has made absolute. “The tornado caused me to think about God” and “God sent the tornado to Minneapolis so I would think about God” are simply two pastorally different statements. I’d suggest that what I can say about my house fire (or Piper can say about his cancer) and what I can say about Minneapolis’s tornado are two very different things on the level of using my interpretation of events as God’s Word.

In my conception of pastoral care, there are things you can think and believe, and then there are things you say at particular times. In the neo-natal ICU, when a child is about to die, people are making these connections: God is punishing them, God isn’t there, God is wanting something from them, etc. I believe pastoral care doesn’t tell people why that tornado is in the ICU. It humbly clarifies what we know about God from Jesus and the Gospel. I’m not going to say “this happened for the glory of God” THEN. I’m going to lament THEN. I’m going to take the time to see death for the enemy that it is, not say this is God. I’m going to Romans 8:28, etc LATER. If your first word to those parents is God’s sovereign ordering of all things so they will repent, I don’t think you’ve spoken a false word, but in the context, you’ve spoken a word that makes it more difficult to trust God. Jesus wept even when he’d said Lazurus’s death was for the glory of God. Some believe the highest expression of God’s sovereignty in the midst of tornadoes is the best pastoral and evangelistic word at that moment. It’s a legitimate disagreement, and no one should be embarrassed for having it. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Greg Boyd on Piper’s tornado. BTW, my commendations on excellent behavior by all in the comment thread.

UPDATE: From long, but right on point: The Islamization of Christianty by Udo Middleman.

UPDATE: Some of my own thoughts on the ‘04 Tsunami. Also, Halden Doerge: Why John Piper is Dangerous. I first caught the attention of the Reformation Police when I blogged about Paul Proctor’s announcement that God killed emerging pastor Kyle Lake. This was repeated by some bloggers that would surprise you.

UPDATE: Baptist Press takes a break from vilifying Piper’s association with Mark Driscoll to reprint his tornado theology.

Jerry Falwell said that 9-11 was God’s judgment on gays, feminists, abortionists and other sinners. (He later apologized.)

Pat Robertson has repeatedly told us that hurricanes are God’s judgments on the east coast.

More than a few preachers have said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment on New Orleans. Which is apparently why it almost destroyed New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and left the French Quarter in place.

John Piper has chimed in before on what was going on when the Interstate bridge in Minneapolis collapsed.

Now Piper has written that a tornado in Minneapolis was a warning to liberal Lutherans about to vote on issues related to gay clergy. Here’s Pastor Piper’s original post.

When I was 13, I fell off my bicycle and busted a tooth. I won’t tell you what I was doing back in those days, but I got the message.

After you read 1 Kings 19:9-13 and David Sessions at Patrol Magazine, you can comment.

The open mic question of the day: How would you characterize this kind of comment? A bit excessive, but harmless? Arrogantly outside the lines of what any Christian ought to say in the aftermath of a serious or tragic event? Confused, but sincere? Proof that Job’s friends (”I know why it happened! I know!! Call on me!! I know!!) and not Job’s repentance (Job 42:1-6 “I’m shutting up”) are really the model for theology in the reformed camp?

UPDATE II: And now the announcement is that this thread means I believe all theology is equally true. See, I 1) shouldn’t be letting you people tell your stories at all. It’s rejoicing in sin. 2) I should be preaching to all of you because right belief is the answer to everything. 3) and then I should be rejoicing that you all never return to this site again. But at least I witnessed to you.

God forbid that we act like people actually matter. Lord, save us from having to listen to someone’s pain. Just SHUT UP and SHOW ME YOUR CONFESSION. Right?

I’m looking for stories; stories of how relationships were changed for the worse because of theology.
I want commenters to tell- briefly- their stories of how theology caused stress, conflict, change, separation and distance in relationships with spouses, family members, parents, friends, co-workers and/or fellow Christians.

I’m not interested in changes from Christian to atheist, etc. Or in announcing you were gay. I want to know how someone becoming Calvinist changed your relationship. How did someone’s charismatic practices cause rejection? How did your family change their treatment of you when you left the Baptist denomination and became Orthodox? How does a creationist treat a Christian co-worker who is an evolutionist? How did your move to or from Catholicism affect your marriage? Are there people who stopped speaking to you or started evangelizing you when you changed your theology or practice?

That’s the sort of stories I’m looking for. With 40% of Americans changing religions and many moving to and from various theological positions, there’s bound to be a lot of these. Share them. Briefly. In the comments.

An atheist visits Planetshakers Church for the big show.

This may be the best discussion starter you’ll see this year. If you want to take a measure of how evangelicals see their world, hand them this description of an atheist’s visit to a high-powered Australian megachurch. Read. Ask for responses. Take notes.

I’ll be quite honest with anyone: In my limited opinion, this appears to me to be the death throes of any substantial evangelical Christianity. The atheistic author doesn’t leave me any hints that the Gospel showed up (and maybe it did.) The stumbling block of the cross? Maybe it’s there and atheists don’t hear it. I’ve never been to Planetshakers, so I don’t know. I can’t judge the Gospel proclamation from this distance. I will say I don’t believe atheists are stupid. If Jared Wilson were preaching, the atheist would have been offended by his constant focus on Jesus. [Continue reading]

Today’s iMonk Cafe open mic question may pertain more to preachers, but also to those who read sermons, hear them, read blogs, books, etc. Anyone who hears the Word handled.

Have you ever heard a text that was meant to proclaim the Gospel- the good news of what GOD has done- turned into LAW? What you had to do?

So here’s today’s question: “What are some examples you’ve heard or read of Good News Gospel texts in scripture being turned into lessons, examples, moralism, advice, demands, guilt trips, shouldas and ought tos, in other words, LAW?

Also, my occasional post at the Steve Brown, Etc guest room is up. It’s called “Sometimes I don’t like any of the answers.”

I put forward the following DESCRIPTIVE and DIAGNOSTIC proposition, not to get up in someone’s face or assert superiority, but to understand things that are:

“It appears that the HIGHER the view of the church, the clergy and the administration of the sacraments (not the sacraments themselves, but the ADMINISTRATION of them), the LOWER the view and practice of church planting. Why is this? The great challenge to the mainline and Reformation churches is finding ways to understand and overcome this situation.”

I will administer assertively. I am NOT inviting a comparative sacramentalism debate. I am challenging churches whose ecclesiology is not “entrepreneurial” to assess and suggest how they can aggressively start new work that will become new church plants in the future. I will NOT post comments questioning the value of church plants. That is assumed.

I am particularly interested in how this situation is overcome in other contexts, such as in India or Africa.

Noel, Ryan and I were talking tonight about the fact that while a few middle/high school girls read, almost no middle/high school boys read.

My dad died almost 15 years ago. He enjoyed Zane Grey and Tarzan. There was a time the John Carter of Mars books were popular. Also the Hardy Boys. Sherlock Holmes. I read a lot sports as a kid. Times have changed.

Boys today read manga and comics, if they read at all. A few read Poe and Tolkien. When in college, Sci-fi and action/military books may find an audience.

So what is out there, contemporary and classic, that we could suggest or assign to middle/high school boys? (Not Christians in an advanced environment. Just regular boys.)

So Evangelicals….what will be your version?