How to Handle Criticism

Pastor J.D. Greear reports again on something he learned from Mark Driscoll:

Mark said something to me that I've never quite heard put the way he put it. He referred to a number of mentors in his life who had turned on him or disappointed him. He said that he used to be devastated when it happened, feeling like a significant part of his own ministry was crashing. He said that now, however, he looks at mentors as people who put "building bricks" into his life. He's gotten many such bricks from many different people over the years. Some of those people have turned on him since, but he is still eternally grateful to them for the bricks they laid into his life. It made me realize that JESUS is the only mentor and master builder who never disappoints, and HE uses people in our lives who will sometimes fail us. But the valuable things we got from them were really from Him, so we don't have to despair when they fail us.

Some of Mark's best bricks, he said, have come from his critics. They threw their brick at him, and after recovering from the initial sting of it, he picked the brick up and incorporated it into his wall.

Pretty helpful analogy, I think.

At any rate, hope you've enjoyed these few posts about my interaction with Driscoll. I'm grateful for him as a pastor, leader and friend. I believe my own ministry is much richer now for his in my life.

DCB - O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing

I just got the new project from The David Crowder Band called Remedy. I have never been a huge fan of these guys, but this CD has a cool arrangement of O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing that could be very useful for those that lead corporate worship. You can find this arrangement here on iTunes.

Driscoll on Emergent Leaders

I just finished listening to Mark Driscoll's message that he recently delivered at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He mainly dealt with the beliefs of three main guys from the Emergent movement (Conversation?), Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, and Doug Pagitt. I think you should listen to what Mark has to say here. He is a gifted communicator draws some good attention to what many of these leaders hold dear. I think it's good to hear it from them directly to make your own evaluations, but Mark does a good job with his brief highlights.

His talk also shows that God has been working the virtue of humility in his heart in recent days as he is quick to confess where he has been wrong in the past in the way he has responded to these men.

You can get the podcast of the message here on iTunes.

Pastor J.D. Greear says this about Mark:

One of the most interesting things about Mark Driscoll was his love of theology. He considers himself in the "New Reformed" movement, which, as I mentioned in the last post, differs from the old Reformed in that a) they are nice; b) they look at lost people compassionately as individuals who need Christ and not just kindling; and c) they raise their hands in worship to songs, and not just songs on the cutting edge of the 18th century.

He is a ravenous reader, owning close to 5000 books and talks easily about any number of subjects. When it comes to the union of culture and theology, he is as knowledgable as anyone I've ever met. He doesn't yet have a completed seminary degree (showing you don't need one to know God, reach people, and grow deeply) but he is working toward one (showing that he values study and learning).

He told me that he has become friends with a number of the most famous "megachurch" pastors... many of whom are not really known for depth. He named a number of them who have asked him to help them develop that part of their ministry... for books to read, etc. He said that most of them are turned off from "doctrinally deep" ministries because they don't seem to reach people and criticize those who are. Mark said that rather than just using these guys as targets, some of the more doctrinally-gifted pastors might offer to come alongside these megachurch guys so that they might learn from each other.

Mark is one of the few in the country who embody both theological richness and evangelistic effectiveness, like a Charles Spurgeon. May his tribe increase. It seems to me that we so desperately need in this country a group of men and women who can readily apply the Gospel to the the massive cultural shifts and societal idolatries while being effective with and accessible to everyone... who can build "great" churches in terms of size and doctrinal fidelity.

This is Jazz! (Not Really, But Funny)

Uh... Are you serious?

If I ever see someone actually wearing this shirt, I will be forced to punch them in the face.

(HT: STR)

An Article From Rick

Tullian Tchividjian writes an insightful post called "I Like Rick Warren" highlighting an article from Rick Warren entitled, Six Worldviews You’re Competing Against.

He writes:

I hope that you will be more inclined to pray for Rick than you are to critique him. Critiquing him (or anybody else, for that matter) is beneficial where and when he misses the mark (either personally or theologically). But if you find more joy and satisfaction in critiquing him where he is wrong than you do in praising God where he is right, than you need to repent. I know, because I had to. Enjoy this helpful article.

Good word for all of the "pit-bull Calvinists" (as Mark Driscoll would say) out there!

Check Yo Self!!! (With the Bible)

The idea of the hermeneutical circle is simply this: one cannot read the Bible obediently unless one has the mind of Christ, but one cannot get the mind of Christ unless one reads the Bible. So the very function of Scripture is to give us the mind of Christ. We do not come to the Bible only after we have the perfect view of things. If we wanted to hold such a view, we would actually deny Scripture's function as a pair of spectacles. We know Christ only as He addresses us in Scripture. We come to know the mind of Christ, how to think redemptively about things, only through Scripture as well. The hermeneutical circle says we begin with Scripture where we are. When we first come to the Bible we come with all the baggage of our culture and our own sinfulness. I do not know about you, but I live in a secularist, humanistic, progressively scientistic, egalitarian, individualistic, capitalistic, and materialistic world. Furthermore, I am convinced that the world revolves around me, and whatever I think is right is right, and whatever I do is good. We all start there, and we all come to Scripture with that attitude, and this means that Scripture will offend us, right form the very beginning. And we will feel the sting of that very offense as it breaks down our presuppositions, breaks down our allegiances, and starts redirecting them. But our coming to see the world as God would have us see it through Scripture, like the rest of our sanctification, is a life-long process. It happens a little bit at a time, each time I come back. That is why it is called the hermeneutical circle. There is breaking down and a redirecting, and with each bit of new insight there is a bit more clarity. I get my materialism critiqued; I get my sexism critiqued; I get my racism critiqued along with all my other -isms. I would suggest that, should we ever get completely comfortable with the Word of God, we stop listening because we all have some things that are going to need breaking down and redirecting in the rest of our lives.

- Dr. Michael Williams with God and His Word found at Covenant Worldwide.

New Foo

I just got the new record from The Foo Fighters, entitled, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. It's great. I personally think it's the freshest writing that they have come up with since, There is Nothing Left To Lose. I would highly recommend getting it if you are rock fan.

You can find it here on Amazon and here on iTunes. It actually not available until tomorrow.

Prom Songs For Jesus

Another winner from Mark Driscoll:

...most churches and pastors have no idea what to do with men who are not motivated by a weepy worship dude(ish) singing prom songs to a Jesus who is presented as a wuss who took a beating and spent a lot of time putting product in his long hair.

I am glad that I have short hair or Mark might come and find me and beat me up.

Phriday Phunnies

Best Calvinist pick up line:

"This Totally depraved person has been Unconditionally drawn to you, Limiting himself to your Irresistible beauty that is Persevering beyond all others."

Read some others here. They are pretty cheesy, but some are kind of funny.

(HT: Monday Morning Insight)


Brian Regan is funny:







(HT: Joe Carter)

Kanye West - Graduation

Ryan Hamm from Relevant Magazine reviews Kanye West's latest release. He concludes by saying:

When all is said and done, Graduation will probably be one of the best hip-hop releases of 2007. Kanye’s production, MC abilities and general swagger are all intact. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he could have told us more with this album. When Kanye indulges in his own excesses to this extent, it becomes hard to listen to. Ultimately, what could have been great has to settle for merely “really good.”

I personally really dig Kanye's art. He is genuinely creative and original, which is hard to come by on the Hip-Hop scene. Though much of what he says is straight wack, I can't resist his unique talent.

MuteMath In Reverse

Go back and watch this video. It's super cool. You can tell that they shot it in reverse. Amazingly hard to do I would imagine.

Last night they played the actual song on Jimmy Kimmel Live in reverse then when they aired the show they played the footage forward. See if you can wrap your mind around this. Wild stuff. Check it out here. This has to be a TV first.

Insatiable Hunger

Jared with a good word on the prosperity gospel:

The real devil in the details of the prosperity-type teaching overtaking evangelicalism is not really that it skips over the stuff about sin. Sure, it does that too, but the pernicious paradox of this stuff is that it champions "victorious Christian living" yet does not equip believers for sustainable discipleship. It emphasizes feelings and "outlook," not the power of the Spirit, which is hard for some folks to notice since the latter is often conflated with the former (so that being optimistic or a go-getter is ipso facto being Spirit-empowered). The problem over time is that, going from victory to victory, expecting victory after victory, cultivates a contagious form of spiritual greed. (Is it any wonder that this sort of teaching often goes hand and hand with talk of financial riches and prosperity?) The real stuff of discipleship -- what Eugene Peterson calls "a long obedience in the same direction" -- involves hard stuff like discipline and the fruit of the Spirit. In pop discipleship discipline is replaced by steps, tips, and amazingsupercolossal breakthroughs.

So the great irony of prosperity gospelism -- and more people teach and believe this stuff than the walking cartoons on TBN, trust me -- is that it actually cultivates its own need for itself. It is built on discontentment and greed and desire and accumulating (whether stuff or "spirituality"), and therefore it turns in on itself, self perpetuating, continuing to create the needs it promises to fill. We all know what happens when you try to fill a God-shaped void with anything not God-shaped. We all know that money doesn't buy happiness, etc etc.

Pastors and Pornography

What makes a person vulnerable to pornography? Addiction is prevalent, Laaser says, among people who have high-demand but low-structure jobs and who spend a great deal of time at their computers, initially for work-related reasons, but also for social connection and entertainment. He points to three elements that foster sexual addiction: loneliness, anger and boredom.

Clergy, Laaser notes, often fit this profile: their jobs make high demands, they work in large part independently and they often struggle with loneliness, anger and boredom. Pastors are often isolated and work in contexts where they have few if any peers. Friendships, too, may be rare for pastors. While they are caregivers themselves, pastors may not have care extended to them.

Read the whole thing here and pray for your pastor.

Crazy Medical Story Of The Day

Read about it here.

(HT: Relevant Mag)

Good Quotes on Headship and Submission

Subordination smacks of exploitation and oppression that are deeply resented. But authority does not mean tyranny, and the submission to which the apostle refers does not imply inferiority. Wives and husbands have different God-appointed roles, but all have equal dignity because they have been made in the divine image and in Christ have put on a the new person who is created to be like God (see eph 4:24).
- Peter O'Brien from his commentary on Ephesians in the Pillar commentary series.

The example the husband sets has eternal consequences. This means headship is more about controlling one's character than controlling one's wife. The man who is more concerned with how his wife should obey him than with how he should obey God fails the kindergarten of Biblical headship.
-Bryan Chapell from Each for the Other.

The most ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married.
- John Piper

Mark Driscoll is Funny

My new favorite Mark Driscoll quote:

Most people define what is good and bad worship based on their feelings. and will say "I didn't cry, so that wasn't good worship." Well, I can punch you, and you'll cry; will that make it better?

Quoted in this post.

Here are the other winners from Mark:

• I'm a charismatic with a seatbelt.
• Speaking on the danger of making family an idol: "It may be a sin to Focus on the Family.
• Children are a blessing from the Lord, but they are a bad God!
• Jay-Z used to sing songs about how bad it is in the hood. Then he went to Africa, and he saw there's a whole different kind of hood.

Church Marquee in a New Age

Seek Justice, Encourage the Oppressed

Jerram Barrs has an interview here with Patricia Green. Here is a brief bio on Patricia:

For the past fourteen years, Patricia Green Director of Rahab Ministries, has worked in Bangkok, Thailand, with women and children who have been sold into sexual slavery. Ms. Green and the other Rahab Ministries workers seek to bring these oppressed people out of prostitution, by the grace of God. Ms. Green recently visited the campus of Covenant Seminary to help students become more aware of the need to seek justice on behalf of these women. The following is an interview with Ms. Green that Professor Jerram Barrs led during her visit.

As Christians we have to be informed on this issue and fight for justice in this area. Read the interview here.

The Role of The Pastor

Mark Lauterbach has a great post about a pastor's role that should go beyond preaching. It's great. Read the whole thing here.

Are Evangelicals Honest?

Often a liberal is far more honest in handling the text than is an evangelical. This is because the evangelical is stuck with the results of his exegesis. The liberal can say that the apostle Paul taught the headship of the man in marriage, and wasn't that silly? The evangelical, trying to keep up with crurent trends, and also trying to keep the Bible, has to try to make paul into a contemporary sensitive male, which is frankly not very easy. In the same way, a disinterested observer is often more honest in telling us what the Westminster Confession says, for example, than a fellow who has sworn to uphold it, but doesn't want to.

-Doug Wilson
From his book, Mother Kirk, p. 200.

Back from Vacation

I'm back now from a mini-vacation back to the motherland of the great state of Iowa. I was invited to sit in at my former church's 75th anniversary celebration. I played in the band for the worship services and had a great time hanging with family, life-long friends and mountain biking twice at SugarBottom nature center. It was great to be back but also confirming that we are where we are supposed to be right now in Albukracky.

** Update **
Emily has posted some beautiful pics of the great state of Iowa on her blog.

What The Office Employees Did Over The Summer

What is the Gospel?

A Qualification for Church Leadership

Most churches make the mistake of selecting as leaders the confident, the competent, and the successful. But what you most need in a leader is someone who has been broken by the knowledge of his or her sin, and even greater knowledge of Jesus' costly grace. The number one leaders in every church ought to be the people who repent the most fully without excuses, because you don't need any now; the most easily without bitterness; the most publicly and the most joyfully. They know their standing isn't based on their performance.

-Tim Keller

From this post from The Gospel-Driven Church.

9/11 - An Antedote for Forgetfulness

Matt Reisetter posts a moving set of pictures from 9/11 and calls us to not forget.

Does Participation in Sports Build Character?

Anthony Bradley makes the case that sports DO NOT build character. He writes:

Why are so many professional athletes, who have spent their entire lives in organized sports, masters at cheating, serial adultery, drunkenness, compulsive gambling, drug abuse, and thuggish fighting (to name just a few of the vices)? The truth is that sports no more builds character than attending Clemson University football games qualifies you to replace Tommy Bowden as head coach.

10 Things to Know

Gary Lamb gives us ten things that he wished he would have known before he planted his church. I think all ten of these apply well to church work in general as well. I say Amen to all of them.

Here they are:

1. Be secure in your calling.
2. People who come one time and act like you are the greatest thing in the world, want to sign up for everything after one visit, talk about how they are called to ministry after one visit, etc are the ones that won’t last long. It happens every time.
3. You can NEVER cast vision too much. Volunteers do what they do because of the vision, not because they need something else on their schedule.
4. Small groups are a lot of work and NO ONE is doing them well especially if they are reaching unchurched people. However when they run right there is nothing greater.
5. Who you do this thing with is so important. Do it with friends and people you enjoy being around.
6. Don’t be afraid to talk about money. The bible talks a lot about it and it is part of spiritual growth. Big vision takes big money and God uses people to fund that vision.
7. Be yourself. The world doesn’t need another Ed Young, Andy Stanley, Rob Bell, or Erwin McManus. It does however need you to be you and who God created you to be.
8. Don’t be afraid to lose people. I never want to see people go, but there are times when people nned to leave and in the early days I was too afraid to lose people that I kept people around that needed to leave.
9. Take time off!!!! Starting a church is a marathon, not a sprint. You are in this thing for the long haul so take care of your body, your mind, your soul, your marriage, and your family now where you can be doing this thing later.
10. Enjoy the ride. Quit worrying about the next growth barrier, the other churches in town, the critics, etc. Just enjoy what God is doing. Stop and smell the roses. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Keep pushing to reach more people, but enjoy what is happening while it is happening.

The Fog of Theological Jargon

In dealing with some objections to the study of theology, Dr. Michael Williams from Covenant Theological Seminary says this:

Another objection: "Theology delves too deeply into things it cannot know, mysteries that are beyond human understanding, and this preoccupation with the unknowable puts theologians out of touch with the practical everyday lives of people." This one makes me scratch my head because it is unfortunately often true. Theology is often too speculative, far more speculative than it has any right to be. It is one of the things I am going to argue in this course. Much of seventeenth-century Calvinism, my own tradition, engaged in the kind of inquiry that Calvin himself would have called speculative. Theologians have sometimes claimed to know more about heaven and hell, the age to come, the ministry of angels, and many other things than the Bible says, and sometimes we have specialized in and trafficked in the most highly questionable of theological concerns. Perhaps it will tickle the ears of the overly curious. But let me spread the guilt around to get other people involved. I think an overly speculative and argumentative theology is also sometimes the special interest of theological students. Once we have mastered some of the ideas and impenetrable fog of jargon, we seek for someone to joust with. We have not mastered the goal of theological study, nor its real intention, but we have got some of the tools -- I was going to say the weapons -- and thus we seek intellectual combat with anyone who is willing to take us on. In other words, sometimes we know just enough theology to get into trouble and to give the theological enterprise a bad name. So unfortunately I think this third objection is often far too true.

From this lecture.

Justice is for Losers

Dan Edelen posts an interesting essay entitled, "Justice is for Losers." He writes:

Last week, I discussed issues facing men. One of the fallacies that the modern Christian men’s movement upholds with religious fervor is the power of the strong. Something about a song Beck sang...But in the Bible, on the whole, strength is only good when God wields it. When Man throws it around, people wind up crushed. Sadly, too many of us root for the crushers rather than defend the crushees.

When we speak of justice, we must remember that justice is for losers. As Christians, we’re to minister justice on behalf of the losers of this world, the ones who cannot keep up, the ones who do not have the strength to carry on. As much as we rant about righteousness, I hardly ever hear Christians begging to be more just in their hearts.

This Video Defies a Title

Wow. The 80's were amazing and all, but this pretty much takes the cake:

iPhone Rebate

See what a nice guy Steve Jobs is.

**Update**

And check out what pc world says about about Apple.

Standing on the Promises

This is what I am hoping to get for Christmas:

You can read about it here.

Indoctrinate U

(HT: MTR)

Herbie Hancock - The Making of "Possibilities" DVD

I just got done watching an amazing music DVD. It's called Possibilities and features the making of a CD from jazz giant Herbie Hancock where he colaborates with many different musicians from John Mayer, Joss Stone, Johnny Lang, Paul Simon, Sting, Annie Lenox, etc. This DVD chronicles the making of this CD. Musicially they have assembled the best musicians the world has to offer and the songs are very interesting. If you are music fan like me, I think you'll find this DVD to be extremely entertaining and engaging.

You can find it here on Netflix.

The CD can be bought here on iTunes.

Here on Amazon for the CD, here for the DVD of the making of the CD.

Fantasy Football Rap

Since we did our Fantasy Football draft a few days ago I thought this was pretty funny. If you know anything about Fantasy Football you'll probably think this is funny to. If you don't, you'll just think this is dumb.

Season starts tonight!

It's All Just Interpretation

I have sometimes heard students, not around here but in the past, complain that the Bible, theology, and doctrine are inappropriate subjects of study because nobody really knows; it is all just a matter of interpretation. You have heard that one. I find that a curious comment because, is not everything a matter of interpretation? The study of history is a study of man's interpretation of the past. The study of biology is a study of man's interpretation of a biotic aspect of life. Astronomy is an interpretation of the physics of the astral bodies -- and on and on. So it is curious that this argument be applied only to Scripture and theology. In its simplest terms, let me answer the objection by saying that the Bible is meant as God's communication to man. He expects it to be read. He expects it to be understood. If we really want to say no one can understand it, I think we have passed a judgment on God's ability as communicator. Later, we will make the point that reading the Bible well, understanding it, is work; it is hard work. But it is work we are commanded to do. God is a good communicator, but we are going to have to work to hear it, not because what He's saying is vague but because we have so much gobbledygook between the Word and us.

- Dr. Michael Williams, Covenant Theological Seminary, quoted from the course God and His Word at Covenantworldwide.org

New iPods came out today...

Read about it here.

Hugging in Church

Richard Mouw has written a thoughtful essay on the interesting topic of hugging in church. He writes:

Hugging is a familial activity, not an ecclesiastical one. Families are not churches. In my lecture I put it graphically: “We should not hug in church and we should not preach in the bed!” I was satisfied that I had discovered a solid Reformed rationale for my opposition to ecclesiastical hugging.

Recently, though, I have been re-thinking my views about hugging. For one thing, I have become a public hugger of sorts, and I sense an obligation to bring my theology in line with my practice. But the issue goes deeper. In a lecture on Kuyper that I gave a few months ago at Princeton Seminary, I talked about the ways in which the church might actually have to take on some familial functions in our present situation. Kuyper was presupposing a society in the 19th century Netherlands where family units were fairly stable. Today families are in trouble. Some children regularly move back and forth between different family configurations. Many men and women function as single parents. “Dysfunctional” has become a common adjective applied to family life.

(HT: Sean Michael Lucas)

Bruce Hornsby - Camp Meeting

Bruce Hornsby has just released a new jazz trio CD, with jazz giants, Christian McBride on bass and John Dejohnette on drums. It's a bit out there (not for the beginning listener) but shows what an amazing musician Bruce is. His album before this was a Bluegrass record with Ricky Scaggs. Dude can play.

Here is an interesting interview with Bruce about the record.

You can find the record at iTunes here.
On Amazon here.

Cool album cover, eh?

(HT: John Carlson)

TV and Kids

And the "captain obvious" award of the day goes to this post:

Childhood TV viewing can cause teenage problems

(HT: Wildman Dr. Doug G.)

Be Thankful For Preaching

I think one reason that our people are oftentimes so lackadaisical about the privilege of preaching is that they don't understand the cost that has been born for the word of God to be brought to them in their own language, and they don't understand the magnitude of what it is to have an encounter with the living God which is word-based, facilitated by the servant of God preaching the word of God to their hearts, speaking that truth into their lives.

-Ligon Duncan, quoted in this post.

Evangelism Linebacker

This is pretty funny...



(HT: Joe Carter)

The Power of a Word

...the creator God, though utterly transcendent over and different from the world which he has made, remains present and active within that world, and one of the many ways in which this is so is through his living and active word. This reflects God's own nature on the one hand; it is a natural and normal thing for this God to speak, not some anthropomorphic projection onto a blank deistic screen! On the other hand, it reflects the fact that within God's world, one of the most powerful things human beings, God's image-bearers, can do is to speak. Words change things - through promises, commands, apologies, warnings, declaration of love or of implacable opposition to evil. The notion of "speech-acts", which we referred to already, is fairly new in philosophy. It would not have surprised the ancient Israelite prophets. As Walter Brueggemann put it in his Theology of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1997, 146), expounding Psalm 33:6: "The imagery is of a powerful sovereign who utters a decree from the throne, issues a fiat, and in the very utterance the thing is done."

- N.T. Wright, The Last Word, 38,39

Embracing Accusation

I don't know why I have had such a run of music posts lately, but for whatever reason here is another.

Shane and Shane recently released a new record entitled, "Pages". I have never been a huge fan, but yesterday a friend of mine drew my attention to one of their songs on this new record that demands attention. This song entitled, Embracing Accusation, is one of the best retellings of the Gospel that I have ever heard in song form. You must hear this song. Extremely powerful.

Here are the lyrics:

Father of lies, coming to steal kill and destroy
All my hopes of being good enough
I hear him saying, “cursed are the ones who can’t abide”

He’s right, hallelujah, he’s right
The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed
That I am cursed and gone astray
I cannot gain salvation
Embracing accusation

Could the father of lies be telling the truth of
God to me tonight?
That if the penalty of sin is death, then death is mine
I hear him saying, “cursed are the ones who can’t abide”

He’s right, hallelujah, he’s right
The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed
That I am cursed and gone astray
I cannot gain salvation

The devil’s singing over me an age-old song
That I am cursed and gone astray
Singing the first verse so conveniently over me
He’s forgotten the refrain.
JESUS SAVES!!!

You can find this individual song at iTunes here.
You can find the whole album here at Amazon.com.

As a bonus for me, they also recorded a version of Before The Throne of God Above that has an additional chorus (that I assume they wrote) that I found very useful for corporate worship.