A Late Follow-Up on Acts 29 Boot Camp

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I guess now is as good a time as any to write up my thoughts on the Acts 29 Boot Camp I attended on March 10, 2011. I've been slightly hesitant for two reasons. One, I'm sure some of the Acts 29 Network and some of my reformed friends will react with, "Why on earth would you attend?". Two, I'm sure some of my fellow Methodists will react with, "Why on earth would you attend?". Let me answer that second. The first thing I want to say is that I absolutely did not attend with the idea that I would write an undercover story to tell anyone what really goes on. If there is a "really" I don't know what it is and I probably wouldn't tell you about it - I'd talk to the men in charge because airing laundry isn't my thing.

So, why did I go? I'm not called to church planting and I've not the skills or qualifications for church planting. I love church planters and support them whole-heartedly. I want to help and support church planters as much as I can. I watch church planters pour a lot into ministry and I hurt with them if those plants shut down. As a United Methodist, I haven't seen a lot of church plants make it to viability and I'd like to see that change. I've been talking to a seminary buddy of mine about developing a support network for our tradition and so when an opportunity arose for me to observe and learn from a network that has a viability percentage that's directly opposite of ours, I couldn't wait to attend. I emailed them about the viability of church plants and they graciously replied to me. You want to know what it is? "98.4%. I'd have to double check, but for some reason I thought it was 3 years." That's cut and pasted right out of the email I received back. Wow. If you aren't floored by that, you aren't paying attention. I wanted to learn something from them because they clearly have a lot to teach.

What did I learn?

Did they flood attendees with tips and tricks about marketing and miracles? Nope.

The entire first day (the only day I attended) was about the church planter's character. I say this with all the loving sarcasm I can muster - Gee, what a concept. (My sarcastic contempt is for every book, blog, and article I've read that skips right over that component as though it's foundational and doesn't need to be covered.)

There was some righteous anger in some of the talks. I felt like that anger was from a place of deep hurt and sorrow because of some ministry failures within the network that resulted from a lack of character focus. As Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Network President, said, "Some of you are hiding your sins right now." Sam Storms, Matt Carter, and Bruce Wesley also spoke and didn't hold anything back, either. I reflected and prayed because even though I'm not planting a church, I could as easily fail for a number of reasons - particularly self-idolatry.

For me, in spite of the time being terribly lonely for an outsider introvert, it was a fantastic time of prayer, reflection, rebuke, and repentance. At the end of the evening, right before he spoke, Matt Chandler came out and exhorted us to turn our attention away from ideas, tips, and tricks and toward listening to the Holy Spirit. This isn't a direct quote, but he said that if we showed up and missed out on the Holy Spirit, our time was wasted.

My time was not wasted.

If you'd like to listen to the content, it is available here.

Shall We Gather?

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I'd better get this in before there's another database connection error. Grrrr.

The scene behind the church this afternoon. It started raining, oh, sometime on Saturday and finally let up a little while ago. I saw on Facebook that we got around 15" of rain. Lots of flooding going on around here.

It rained almost all day long yesterday (Easter). I was pretty bummed because last year it was just so beautiful and bright outside. This year was dark and gloomy. Not the way I wanted to celebrate Easter. But, God was working on me and teaching me.

My mood is generally affected by numbers. And by numbers I mean weekly attendance and giving. It's not just my mood but my self-worth, understanding of calling, and all that. I wasn't fired up for Easter this year. I looked at the weather forecasts and knew that it would rain which meant that there wouldn't be as many people on Sunday morning. I was not happy. But, I noticed something as we began to worship yesterday. Suddenly, that concern and burden weren't there. I'm not entirely sure what God did in me, but I knew that as I got up to preach one of my weakest sermons of all time God was stripping away the self-focused concern about numbers. I cared more about clearly presenting the gospel to those gathered than the actual number of people who showed up. What a clear sign of grace to me and how grateful I was to have experienced it!

Slowly but surely, my heart is figuring out that my identity, self-worth, reputation, and all that are actually in Jesus and not me. I wish I figured out things a little more quickly but progress is better than stalling.

Sunday Links - Easter 2011

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CHRIST IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN, INDEED!

Here’s some Easter Sunday links for you. I’m definitely taking a nap this afternoon so enjoy these while I sleep.

Ok, so it was a thin week link-wise. Holy Week was full of activity and almost all of it great. Thank you, Jesus, for dying and rising.

Bible Software

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As it continues to rain and I think about tomorrow’s message, I thought I’d semi-distract myself with some videos. I’ve been meaning to dig deeper into my favorite Bible software, Accordance, so I decided to watch a few podcasts today and learn some stuff I didn’t know before. I’m very glad I did. Oooh. There’s also the entire training video library.

If you’re a Mac user and Bible nerd, Accordance is for you.

It's a Rainy Holy Saturday

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That's what today looks like. And tomorrow isn't looking too differently. Trouble is, my mind keeps telling me the number of people who worshiped with us on Easter last year before saying, "If it rains, nowhere near that many will come."

As if it were all on me.

So, I'm going to spend some time praying and reading about prayer:

I won't read them all today, but clearly I need to get my mind on Jesus and I need to talk to him. I think these resources will be a big help.

Maundy Thursday

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Here's what I've been thinking about today.

Jesus feeds his disciples. His disciples are Judas, who betrayed him, and everyone else who abandoned him. I've been thinking about how Jesus must have felt in the presence of people who weren't really for him, at least for about four more days. Gethsemane was clearly a difficult experience for Jesus. Knowing what Judas was up to and what he himself was facing that night and the following day was hard.

I know the last thing I want to do when facing a difficult experience is eat. My hunger pangs are barely distinguishable from the knot of anxiety. Yet, Jesus fed his disciples. He fed them in the tradition of the Passover, reinterpreting it's meaning for them the night before he altered it completely and forever on the cross.

For some reason, my mind has been drifting to Psalm 23. I read it aloud at a funeral I officiated on Saturday and the phrase, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" jumped out in my mind as I read it. Why on earth does that sentence get in Psalm 23? It seems out of place. I mean, I'm not going to eat with or in front of my enemies. But this afternoon, all I could think of was Jesus, serving a meal to his disciples, one betrayer and 11 abandoners. Not friends, but enemies. The lamb that was slain at Passover was eaten by those who slew it. Those gathered around that table, in need of the true Paschal lamb, devoured what he provided.

And so we'll eat that meal tonight. We will devour the body and blood of the lamb who was slain. Enemies no more, by virtue of the death he will die on Good Friday but initiated at this table before his beloved enemies.

New Book

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I haven't written a review of a book yet, but I'd like to go ahead and promote a book I just started yesterday because it's good and because the content is important.

One of the great things about studying at Asbury Theological Seminary was the Bible classes. (I would say it was the best thing, but I met my wife there so that was the best thing about ATS.) They were all modeled on the inductive method and I learned a ton from those classes. Sadly, I never learned the method as thoroughly as I would have liked but I believe that was due to my own brain and attention and not the professors or the method. I had some great teachers and some great classes. In fact, Exegesis of Jeremiah is still probably one of my favorite classes of all time both because of the content and the teacher.

My very first Bible class was in the Gospel of Matthew and was taught by David Bauer, one of the authors of a new book I'm reading on the inductive method. What I love about this book so far is that it has clarified some things for me that I didn't pick up 12 years ago when I took that class. Dr. Bauer is a 3rd degree inductive black belt and I was just happy to be wearing the uniform. This new book is helping me tremendously and I believe will aid me in becoming the Bible student I want to be and in becoming a better preacher. I'll do a full review when I've completed the book, but until then I recommend you go and buy it.



What is a Good Christian?

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This could probably be a much better post but I've never met a first draft I didn't love. No, wait. I've never met a first draft that I didn't submit. Maybe that'll change.

You don't care about that, though. Here's the question of the day: What is a good Christian? Is it someone who prays a lot? Someone who knows their Bible forward and backward? Is it someone who is at the church every time the doors are open? Is it someone who serves the poor? Someone who goes overseas to preach the gospel to unreached people?

I bet if you took some time to think about it and wrote some characteristics down on a piece of paper, you'd come up with some pretty standard attributes. Devotionally consistent, compassionate, servant-hearted, evangelistic, and ministry-committed. That would about sum up Sam the Super Christian who is our good ole American, Good Christian poster child.

Comedian Ricky Gervais shares the same perspective. By that I mean he thinks what makes someone a Good Christian is their ability to live up to something whether the Ten Commandments or our gold standard of Christian goodness. Mr Gervais shares his thoughts on how he considers himself to be a good Christian in this link I found by way of my friend Sam.

Here's the thing - and I know I'm on a Gospel Coalition high - Ricky starting point is just flat out wrong. So is ours when we start with the deeds of a good Christian. We're all wrong for two reasons.

First, we are not good. At all. Psalm 14 and 53 (quoted in Romans 3:10) remind us that we are not good. No one is. In reading a passage about prevenient grace recently it was asserted by the writer of the book that John Wesley almost went so far to say that in our depravity we bear the image of Satan. While Ricky is trying to be funny, he's clearly not obeying the ten commandments all the time. "You shall have no other gods before me." Ricky, you are your own god. Your point for that one is deducted. That's just the first commandment without going through and finding the holes in the rest.

Second, here's what makes me a good Christian - Jesus. Not my inability to keep the commandments, love my neighbor, or love God, but Jesus. This is imputed righteousness. It is Christ's goodness, not ours, that declares us good in our sinfulness. It is Christ's goodness, not ours, that is our basis for hope as we stand in judgment. If I do anything good in this world it is the work of the Holy Spirit for God's glory and not my own.

I'm not a good Christian the way Gervais defines it, but I have a good Christ and that is all I need.

Conference Thoughts

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I'm in the second day of The Gospel Coalition. It’s been great. If you are thinking it’s weird that a Methodist would attend this primarily Reformed event, you'd be right: it is weird. (I did hang out with a seminary classmate and fellow UM pastor and one other UM pastor here so I'm not alone.) If you're wondering why I would come to worship and learn with this bunch, I've been trying to articulate why I'm drawn to this crowd and it comes down to this – when I hear or read these people I almost always am drawn to both worship Jesus and desire Jesus. My heart cannot say that about 97% of what I read in my own tradition. I experience this when I read Wesley but very few others after him have inspired such devotion to Jesus. That leaves me with two items to develop and write about for the future 1. How to encourage theology inspired doxology in our tribe and 2. How to encourage people to write in such a way as to inspire these potential authors.

I have received so much at this conference, including free books(!!!), but the very best thing has been meeting some people I've only previously known on-line. This post by Steve McCoy sums up most of what I've been thinking. I have spent time with two pastors from my area who I have met before. I got to tell Jared Wilson that God is using his Gospel Wakefulness talks in a powerful way in my heart and meet his lovely wife who is genuinely sweet, a rare quality. I also got to overhear Jared’s friend, Ray Ortlund, tell a man “You really need to get to know Jared Wilson if you're interested in this.” and then give the blog address to this dude which I know was a beautiful compliment that Jared didn’t get to hear but I did and teared up. I got to meet the aforementioned Steve McCoy and Joe Thorn who are going to be the Matthau and Lemon of the church one day. Oh, and I got to eat dinner at the same table as my favorite productivity blogger, Matt Perman.

I'll have more to write when I return, but that’s what I find spinning around in my head and heart and I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to be here.