I was listening to a podcast on Issues Etc. earlier this week and I was struck by a profound thought. The title of the podcast was “The Vocation of Minister.” I’d normally link directly to it but the site appears to be down as I’m writing this, nothing will load.

The guest speaker was talking about how the word minister means “servant,” but most churches today prefer to look to ministers as leaders or CEO’s, and ministers are all too happy to accept this role. The proper role of a minister is that of a servant, and his chief task is to “administer” what God has given, His gifts.

The guest speaker then said this:

“We approach [the vocation of the minister] as a social issue, we look at what the people want. Let’s look at the word ministry. There’s an old saying… ‘The customer is always right.’ The customer knows what he wants and if you’re going to serve the customer, you better give him what he wants or you’re not going to do business with him. That’s precisely wrong when it comes to the church, because the customer is always wrong. And God is always right.

In other words, we must approach the vocation of the minister theologically (not socially). A minister of God must often preach God’s Law and His Gospel to people who don’t want any part of it. Often people don’t realize the depth of their sinfulness (including me), and they must hear God’s Law. Other times the Law has done its work and people have been cut to the heart, then they need to hear the Gospel. The customer (not a good term but I’m using it simply to make a point) is always wrong. He doesn’t want what he really needs. I am so often guilty of this. I often want authenticity, community, and whatever – but what I really need is the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. These other things are secondary to this primary need.

It is too easy to lose sight of Christ as the focal point of our churches when we operate with the assumption that the folks in the pews are right. That’s how we get mega-churches that acquiesce to, rather than transform, culture. Give the people what they want and you will grow numerically, but that’s not how ministry progress ought to be measured.

Today is the first day of Lent, a 40 day season of the historical church year leading up to Easter, also metaphorically corresponding to the 40 days Jesus was tempted while fasting in the desert. Originally, Lent was a period of intense fasting and prayer that believers went through prior to being baptized at the Easter Vigil. It then became a period where believers abstained from eating meat and concentrated on prayer. Today many Orthodox and Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays (hence why there are so many “Fish Fry’s” on Fridays and fish specials during this time of year). Other evangelical traditions encourage people to give something up for Lent, in order to focus on scripture and prayer.

The most popular thing people are giving up for Lent this year is Facebook. And then of course there is the old joke, “I’m giving up giving something up for Lent.”

Me personally, I’m giving up for Lent. I’m going to stop trying to base my spirituality on my own performance. I’m going to try to stop relying on myself to obtain victory over sin in my life. I’m simply going to give up, and give it all over to Christ. And hopefully I make this a life-long change.

What are you giving up for Lent?

This is a great poem by Taylor Mali that has been turned into a short video. I saw this at Extreme Theology and thought I’d share it:

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Perhaps some of the reasons that Christian music sucks stem from postmodern nonsense?

Thanks for all the recommendations. I did end up finding a couple artists I enjoyed. I couldn’t help but post this video. I saw it at Extreme Theology and just had to post it. This guy is very honest and authentic about his feelings toward Christian music, and I tend to agree with him:

I got a bunch of iTunes gifts cards for Christmas, and I have found a couple albums I am currently enjoying, but for the most part, a lot of Christian music sucks. Almost every worship song is playing the same 1-6-5-4 chord progression in the key of E, and most Christian sub-genres look and sound the exact same as their secular counterparts. I thought Christians were to be “in the world, but not of the world.” Is the Christian music industry an exception? Where are the creative artists?

I’ll be reserving my iTunes gift cards until I get some good recommendations. For now, these are some Christian artists I have been enjoying:

• Derek Webb
• Shane & Shane
• Indelible Grace Music
• Caedmon’s Call
• Scott Phillips

What artists have you been enjoying? Any recommendations for artists that glorify God and don’t try to look and sound like the status quo?

It seems that Christophobia is rampant these days. Nothing causes such a stir as two simple words: “Jesus Christ.” Have you ever noticed that if a chaplain closes a prayer “in Jesus’ name,” it makes headlines, but if a religious leader prays to Allah, Benevolent Spirit, Jehovah, etc. no one bats an eye? Why is it that when people hit their thumb with a hammer they yell “JESUS CHRIST!” They don’t yell “BUDDHA” or “ALLAH!” It just doesn’t happen very often. It makes one wonder….

The folks who seem to fear the most when the politically incorrect name of Jesus is invoked are Christians. That’s the ironic part. I know lots of Christians who almost cringe at the mention of Jesus’ name in so-called “secular” realms.

And we seem to excuse this behavior. We seem to empathize when people hide their affiliation with Christ for job security, or to maintain a “normal” social image. Aside from DC Talk, no one wants to be labeled a “Jesus freak.”

[Jesus said,] “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

I sometimes wonder if those who fear the name of Jesus really understand the profoundness of the Gospel. I wonder if they really know the depths of His love.

Sometimes they are unable to know the depths of His love because they do not know the depths of their sin. If your sin is small, then your Savior will also be small. But when we recognize how depraved we really are, we can only exclaim with St. Paul,

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

“Everyone” includes you and me. Everyone includes your coworkers, the media, your students, your teachers, your boss, your family, your friends, and your neighbors. How can we pray for the Gospel to be spread when we are ashamed of it? Political correctness is part of our (fallen) culture. We are called to remain “aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Peter 2:11), to be in the world but not of it (John 17:13-18). At times this will involve breaking cultural taboos. Even if it costs us our jobs or our very lives.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

But take heart, we have a great and loving God. Be thankful.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (1 Timothy 1:7-14).

Happy New Year! A new year is upon us, and resolutions have already been made – and broken. Why do we often fail at our resolutions? Why do we continually make more resolutions despite how often we fail at bringing them into fruition? I was reading my new devotional book yesterday and ran across this interesting quote:

Because you have been made a new person in Christ, the old Adam in you is not to be indulged, tolerated, or even reformed. The baptismal life calls for the mortification of your old Adam through daily contrition and repentance and the living of that new life that clings to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, p. 1445, emphasis mine).

I emphasized the words “or even reformed.” God calls us to mortify our old Adam, not modify it. The Bible commands us to “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Colossians 3:5, NIV). “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:13-14, NIV).

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:3-14, NIV, emphasis mine).

I think that the problem with most new years resolutions is that we are trying to reform our old Adam; we are trying to improve our flesh/sinful nature. The Bible tells us that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7, NIV, emphasis mine). We simply can’t improve our flesh. It will always resist our godly desires (see Romans 7:7-25). Our sinful flesh was crucified with Christ and then drowned in our Baptism. And we are called to daily kill the old Adam and live from our new hearts in Christ, our new nature. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).

This year don’t set resolutions in an attempt to reform your sinful nature. Set a resolution to live from your new heart in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ, live in that reality in 2010.

I remember listening to Kurt Cobain singing “come as you are” in the 90’s. I also remember hearing dozens of churches latch on to this statement. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people need to be all polished up before coming to Jesus, nor do I think folks need to dress up on Sunday mornings (I always wear jeans and a t-shirt). But I think “come as you are” sometimes gets interpreted as “you are acceptable just as you are,” and that’s simply not true.

I know that statement just raised red flags in a few readers’ minds, but hear me out. I absolutely think people should come to Jesus in whatever state they are currently in. After all, if people could get free from sin all by themselves why would they need Jesus? But people must also understand that outside of Christ they are completely unacceptable to God. Consider the following quote:

Truth be told, Christ has not welcomed you just the way you are. He has paid the dearest price of all in order to welcome you: sacrificing His life for you on the cross. Christ welcomed you through the anguish of His betrayal, trial, and death. He did not welcome you freely but in order to set you free from your sins! (LSB, p. 1907).

God is holy. The word holy literally means “set apart, consecrated.” Holiness is like light, and anything else is darkness. When light enters a room, darkness flees. God cannot coexist with evil, and apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ we are completely unacceptable to Him, we cannot come near Him. But Jesus Christ has created the way to the Father by taking our place on the cross, serving our death sentence. His righteousness gets credited to our account by faith and we thereby become acceptable to God.

Too many people have a view of justification that assumes God simply lets our sins slide. The problem is, “the wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23), they must be paid for. Jesus pays for them at Calvary and now offers us eternal life as a gift, which is what the rest of Romans 6:23 says: “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So please come as you are, but know that you are entirely unacceptable to God apart from the righteousness that is imparted to you through a living faith in Jesus Christ.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Recently I wrote about institutional vs. organic church planting and addressed how institutions have failed to create disciples who make other disciples, the only true measure of progress in ministry. Allow me to take the discussion a step further.

Church organizations have a plethora of programs, activities, classes, seminars and more designed to “disciple” their congregation. Yet they repeatedly fail to grow true disciples of Jesus Christ. Perhaps more programs won’t fix the problem, nor will more money or better facilities. We need people who are willing to invest time into other people’s lives. Not just one night a week at a scheduled small group session, but someone who will continually walk beside others. Someone whom you can call at 2AM when you are struggling with temptation, someone who will come over to comfort you after you just found our your friend died, someone who isn’t trying to domesticate you, but simply wants to love and accept you as you are. There aren’t too many of those folks floating around in churches these days, despite the fact that this is how the entire movement has grown (and continues to grow in other countries).

I recently read that only 4% of missionaries go to unreached people groups. In other words, organized churches send all their people to places that are already evangelized. In America, we do the same thing, we plant churches in nice suburbs, places where there is plenty of money. It’s sickening.

Hmm, maybe if we teach people how to be in relationship with Christ and others instead of giving them more programs, things could improve. Maybe if we invested time into messy lives and showed them organic unconditional love, not organizational church love that says, “fit into this mold as soon as possible or we’ll give up on you (you don’t want to ‘help yourself’), and we’ll talk about you behind your back in that God-sanctioned gossip line we call a “prayer chain.”

Hmm…. Maybe if we show people Christ, they would long for Him….

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Look no further. Up until now, I’ve been recommending vCHURCHES as an inexpensive and effective utility for church website creation. But I ran across something better recently: Clover. Here’s a 60-second video showing you its capabilities:

If you’re in the market, you’ll definitely want to check this out. Also, you should know that I do not receive any compensation from Clover nor will I receive any referral kickbacks for sending you to their site. I simply think it looks like a great product and wanted to bring it to your attention.

vCHURCHES is still a great product and is more affordable, so that may still be your best option. But honestly I think you get a bigger bang for your buck with Clover Sites.