There was a pear tree close to our own vineyard, heavily laden with fruit, which was not tempting either for its color or for its flavor. Late one night — having prolonged our games in the streets until then, as our bad habit was — a group of young scoundrels, and I among them, went to shake and rob this tree. We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden. Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart — which thou didst pity even in that bottomless pit. Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error — not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself. -St. Augustine, Confessions, IV, 9.

One of the realities of being a semi-regular correspondent with an audience returning day after day looking for something new from your pen is the fact that you will be writing during all the various states of the human experience. Christian writing on the internet has the tendency to sound as if it is always coming from the warm glow of the study, with drippings of devotional gold appearing on the page after hours of prayer and meditation. I’d judge that to be, almost universally, a myth, and I’m not much on mythologies in my Christianity. [Continue reading]

A wonderful picture of the Father’s grace toward us. If you have been told that God is not like this, remember that in Jesus he is more like this than you could ever imagine.

Let go forever of the scolding, punishing God who demands perfection. Embrace the Father who blesses us and delights in us because of his over-flowing love.

Some interesting discussion on “watchbloggers” on the blogosphere this week. The verdict is that we need them. I agree. A bit like weed-eaters.

Our school has a student work program, and one of the most popular jobs is working on the yard crew. Our boys love to work with the tractors, mowers and weed-eaters.

Especially weed-eaters. It’s a certain sign of spring when I hear the yard crew outside the window of my house, and I can hear the sound of 4 or 5 weed-eater motors revving up like NASCAR racers waiting the start of the race. [Continue reading]

Courtesy of Trevin Wax, but from a sermon by the inimitably wonderful Matt Chandler:

Pastor Matt Chandler gave this illustration during his sermon at a recent Desiring God conference. I think this illustration powerfully communicates the difference between moralism and the Christian gospel.

During my freshman year of college, I sat next to a 26-year-old single mother trying to get her degree. We began a dialogue about the grace and mercy of Christ in the cross. Some other guys and I would go over and babysit her child and try to talk with her. A friend of mine was in a band playing in the area and we invited her to hear him. She agreed. She thought it would be a concert. I knew better. It was shady and she agreed to come.

The minister got up and said, “Today I want to talk to you about sex.” And I immediately thought, Uh oh. He took a red rose, smelled it, showed how pretty it was. Then, threw it out in the crowd and told them to smell the rose. “I want you to smell it and touch it and feel the texture in it.” (There were about 1000 people there.) He then began one of the worst, most horrific handlings of what sex is and isn’t that I ever sat through. It was fear-mongering at its best.

I’m thinking, with Kim beside me, What are you doing? As he wrapped up, he asked, “Where’s my rose?”

Some kid brought the rose back and it was broken. The petals were broken. And he lifts it up. And his big crescendo is to lift up that broken rose and say, “Now who would want this?”

Anger welled up within me and I wanted to say, “JESUS WANTS THE ROSE! That’s the point of the gospel! That Jesus wants the rose. That he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

In my classes, when you get it right- just right- I say “That’s What I’m Talkin’ About!”

That’s what he’s talkin’ about.

Chandler’s podcasted sermons will do you a world of good. Catholics: I bought your gear, you can have Chandler for free. Don’t miss him

Philippians 3:17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite (belly), they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

Let me describe the essence of Christmas holidays in our house:

“It was there, so I ate it.” (Or in the case of egg nog, “It was there, so I drank it….and bought more….and drank it.”) [Continue reading]

UPDATE: My apologies for what the discussion thread turned into on this post. Some things are just very hard to moderate because they aren’t nasty and they are tangentially on topic. Then you get to the point you realize the whole thread has been hijacked by points of view the opposite of what you wanted to discuss. Thanks for the positive, on topic contributions from several of you.

This post is inspired by a FoxNews piece updating the situation of disgraced megachurch pastor Ted Haggard. Haggard was a major leader in evangelicalism until he was brought down by evidence of sexual sin and drug use.

Dear Ted,

May I call you Ted? Not “Pastor Ted,” “Reverend Haggard” or any other ministerial name.

You may not feel like it, but you’re at a good place. Finally. It’s taken a while, but you’ve made it to the place where the Gospel of Jesus has its power. On the verge of the fourth Sunday of the season of waiting, you’ve made it to the place where all that can happen now is for a savior to be born to a virgin. Your savior, no less. Yours and all the other losers.

Yes Ted, honesty, your best gift now has arrived. [Continue reading]

I wrote this as part of a post from February of 07. It goes so well with what I want to say to all of you who may wonder if going on and on about the Gospel is really necessary.

Yes, it is.

Read and think about it:

There is another reason I care deeply about the gospel of Christ, and it has to do with my dad. It’s a story I want to share with you.

My dad had an unusual life. He grew up in Appalachian poverty. He had an 8th grade education. He made little money. He failed at a lot of jobs, but did well at some things that didn’t pay much money. He was friendly and funny most of the time, but also tended to be bitter, angry, short-tempered and depressed. After his health collapsed and depression took over, he had a lot of bad days and a lot of good days. You just never knew. [Continue reading]

Yesterday, I experienced the great part of being a teacher; one of those experiences that make all the others worth it.

It was in my advanced placement English IV class. Our brightest seniors. I’m fortunate to be able to work with them.

A few days before we’d taken our final exam, and with two days left in the quarter, I decided to show the 1989 Peter Weir movie, Dead Poet’s Society, featuring Robin Williams in one of his finest performances, and then write an essay.

It’s the late 1950’s, and conformity is in the air at little Welton Academy, a college prepatory boarding school where Mr. Keating has been hired to teach senior English. Keating tosses the boys some high-grade existentialism and budding beat philosophy along with an adolescent love of romantic literature. The effect of Keating’s mentoring on his young charges is explosive, with results varying from the revelatory to the tragic. [Continue reading]

I’m not usually the guy with sports illustrations, but this one couldn’t be passed up. (And if anyone I know says to me that I was “secretly” talking about them, I’m going to laugh right at you, very loudly.) This is so relevant to thousands of situations, it preaches itself without explanation. Young pastors, listen up.

Friday night high school football with several other men is a highlight of fall for me, and last night was the first game we’d seen. The who, what and where aren’t important, but one aspect of the game was memorable.

The officiating crew was terrible. I know that’s a frequent complaint, but I didn’t really have a dog in the fight and the team I was modestly pulling for won, so I’m not whining. The terrible officiating simply ruined the game. I felt bad for everyone: fans, coaches and, of course, the boys.

In short, the officials threw over 30 flags, most of them frivolous, and mostly in the second half when one team had some hope of gaining momentum enough to make up a three touchdown deficit. There were four reversed calls. Four! Four times the announcer read the signal, the teams reacted, and then a couple of minutes later- without benefit of instant replay- the call was reversed, usually taking away a fumble recovery or a first down. [Continue reading]

Just a couple of stories about the grace that’s all around us, that appears in small ways, and might appear more often if we prayed and took notice of where Jesus said the Kingdom appears.

I.

On Thursday, almost everyone I work with was at a waterpark about an hour away, including my family. I opted to stay home and get work done, as school is about to start and I am way behind on several projects that have to be completed soon.

While the entire staff is gone, a volunteer group from one of our supporting churches comes and does whatever needs to be done in order to keep everything safe and running in the absence of all the support staff. These are people who come a very long way just to do a servant ministry on this one day.

So I was on campus and had to go to the main office for a moment, and outside that building was one man from this group, enjoying the beauty of the day on our nearly deserted campus. I passed him going in and spoke briefly, and on my way out I did the same. He was friendly, but it was all small talk. [Continue reading]

Ordination: I was ordained to the Gospel ministry by a Southern Baptist congregation in 1980, but you won’t hear me have a lot to say about ordination. I believe in it, but in a minimalist kind of way. I don’t believe in titles. (Not calling someone Father or Reverend seems like a can’t-miss teaching of Jesus.) I don’t want a ministerial discount on my shoes or to be authorized to perform weddings. The clergy-laity distinction doesn’t seem very helpful to me, except when absolutely necessary.

I do believe that congregations are commanded in scripture to set aside their leaders and I see the wisdom in commending that ordination to other congregations as a reason to consider a man worthy of recommendation. Of course, I wish my tradition took some aspects of ordination more seriously, as we are famous for laying hands on teenagers and people who don’t understand the Gospel at all. [Continue reading]

Over at Frank Turk’s blog, he has something of a motto up on the sidebar. It’s a phrase his pastor offered in a comment thread sometime in the past. Here it is: The Gospel is the solution to culture.

I’ve often wanted to riff on this statement. While I’m pretty sure how Frank and his pastor see the truth of “The Gospel is the solution to culture,” I’m more than a little puzzled by the statement.

Perhaps the fault is entirely mine, but it appears that the motto is being translated like this: “Culture is always a negative, and the answer to the problem that is culture is the Gospel. Whatever problems culture brings us, the preaching of the Gospel will resolve those problems.”

If I’m getting it wrong, I apologize in advance and invite Frank to come over and shed some light on what he’s hearing in that statement. In the meantime, let me apply it to the “12 Churches, 12 Calvinists” thought experiment. [Continue reading]

How about a little thought experiment? No hidden agenda; just a way to explore the contention that certain things make all the difference.

Imagine for a moment 12 Baptist churches (that may be enough for some of you right there) in my own little Appalachian corner of the world, southeast Kentucky. These 12 churches are scattered across our area, which is almost entirely rural, quite poor, deep in Appalachian culture and all that goes along with it. They are churches dating back a century or more, the people are largely uneducated and some are even illiterate. There are deep problems of unemployment, health care, family dysfunction and substance abuse.

The churches are declining. For the past 15 years, the membership has been ingrown, with no significant influx of outsiders into the area and no significant church growth. The churches are growing older in average age, though several of the churches keep some kind of youth ministry going on. It is very rare to see young couples in church, and the congregations are graying rapidly.

The churches have been led by a variety of area men called to be pastors, with only a couple of local Bible school graduates in the mix. Pastors come and go quickly, with many leaving before two years have passed. Going from one church to another in a type of “Merry-Go-Round” is often a reality. [Continue reading]

***Big Time Humor Alert*** Today, the Internet Monk Web Site ™ brings a special gift of proverbial, anecdotal and Zen-like wisdom as a gift for those angry young (and not so young) men who are burning down churches to make room for coffee shops.

Put on some punk rock, light the incense sticks and turn down the lights so I can see that Che poster in black light. Thank you.

(If you can’t remember these bits of wisdom, they will be available in my new book, Wisdom for Angry Guys Who Are Really Angry, coming to a bookstore near you.)

Lo, the Proverbs appeareth. (How can these things be, since I have not known a man? Seriously.)

He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it. (Wait. How did that get in here?)

George Barna will surely refute- with unassailable statistical evidence- any book with his name on it within ten years of its publication. [Continue reading]

Irony alert!! Overheard at a popular theoblog recently.

Oh those slippery emerging types. Right when you think you have them defined, they go squirming across the room, claiming you’ve misunderstood them.

You know who is just as bad? The “missionals.” One minute it’s Tim Keller. The next it’s Brian Mclaren. You can’t tell one person or another with these generic labels. Is it Ed Stetzer or Tony Jones?

It’s sooooo predictable. Start a conversation on the emerging or missional church and watch all those goatee-wearing, Message-reading, David Crowder look-a-likes say “You just don’t understand us.” [Continue reading]