Thoughts From Chris

Every seven years the elders at Grace give a full-time staff member a sabbatical as a break from the daily responsibilities of ministry and to do something else in ministry. During my first sabbatical I traveled around the country and compiled research for my doctoral thesis on multicultural ministry.  That was seven years ago.  I have been at Grace for 14 years, and now in 2009 I have started my 15th year (unbelievable to me).

I will be taking this second sabbatical during the months of May and June of this year.  I will be away from Grace Gathering during these two months and focusing on two things:   1) researching and interviewing leaders around the country regarding the next stages and steps of our church direction , and 2) I have decided to begin writing my first book (something I have wanted and have been encouraged to do by many people over the years). 

I am debating a few different book topics.  I might write about these topics sometime in the next week or so and seek input from all of you on which topic I should tackle first. 

Also, I would like to get prayer support during those two months.  I would like to have at least one person or family from Grace pray for me during each day I am gone (which would be about 60 families).

I am looking forward to what God will show me during this time away.  I am thankful for the elders’ support and for the church’s support.  I do not deserve to be a follower of Christ and certainly don’t deserve to be a leader at Grace Gathering.  It is so incredibly humbling.

May God receive all the glory. 

One of the things I really like about journaling is that I can look back on what I wrote and see what God has done.  I have kept a journal for the last 18 years.  I started to journal right after I came to Christ after my sophomore year in college.  Back then I would journal a couple times a week.  Today I probably only journal a handful of times a year.  I wish I did it more, but I am thankful that I still do it somewhat.  About once every two to three years I get my journals out or I look through my past entries on my computer and I am amazed at how much I have forgotten and how much God has worked in my life. 

One of the things we are seeing in our OT series is that God worked miraculously on behalf of his covenant people – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This past week we looked at the Exodus and how God freed his people supernaturally from bondage.  It was certainly a clash of the kingdoms as Moses went toe to toe with Pharaoh and the power of darkness.  Later God told the Israelites how important it is that they never forget what God has done.   He then gives them some very specific instructions on how he wants them to do this. 

Journaling our prayers to God and recording the events, emotions, struggles, and victories of our lives is one away we can remember what God has done in our past.

This past Sunday we spent time in our service journaling.  It was the first time we have ever done that during a service.  Many were blessed by it.  We will most certainly do that again.  My encouragement is that as we bring our Bibles to church services that we also bring our notepads regularly as well.  This will not only be helpful in jotting down notes during a message but also thoughts and prayers that God may stir in our hearts.  This will be meaningful in the future when we look back. 

This week one of our house churches will be laying hands on a man who is losing his eyesight.  He requested prayer for healing.   This request and the prayer that will be offered by the house church is a great example of bringing heaven to earth – pursuing the advancement of God’s kingdom.

 

We have been talking recently about covenant and kingdom.  Covenant is about the relationship God has established with us by his grace and the new identity he has given us as his child.  Kingdom is about representing God on the earth as he shares his authority and power with us to advance his will on the earth and war against the kingdom of darkness. 

 

Author and leader Mike Breen calls this the double helix of Scripture.  Covenant and Kingdom are two major themes that run throughout the DNA of Scripture from beginning to end. 

 

When this house church meets this week and lays hands on this gentleman for healing, this is a prayer to bring heaven to earth.  When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he told them to pray, “your KINGDOM come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)

 

We know that losing eyesight or any other physical challenge is the direct result of living in a fallen world.  Sin and the works of Satan’s kingdom bring death and disease.  Sickness was not a part of God’s original creation and it will not be a reality when believers live in the new heaven and new earth. 

 

Our friend will one day be completely healed and will have perfect eyesight when he lives on the new earth forever in glory.  In the meantime, while we live in this life, God has given his covenant people the authority and power to bring his kingdom here on the earth.   This is why we lay hands on people and pray for healing (by the way Jesus and the disciples used the practice of laying on hands as a symbolic gesture of God’s power).   God may or may not bring immediate healing, that is up to him, but he will eventually bring the healing, and if he does it immediately, it serves as an example and foretaste of what is to come. 

 

I want to encourage you as you gather with your communities of faith that you pray, lay hands on one another, and seek to bring God’s heaven to earth, not only in the area of physical healing, but in all the other areas of God’s will in heaven.  This is what it means to be people who bring God’s kingdom to earth. 

One of the common messages teens hear today is the message of abstinence.  The message goes something like this:

 

“Make a commitment to not have sex until you are married.  God wants you to ‘save yourself sexually’ for your future mate.  Just think of how beautiful it would be for you to give your future spouse the gift of your virginity.  Not only does God want you to wait until you are married, there are also many other practical reasons it is good and right to not be sexually active before marriage.  STD’s are common today among sexually active teens.  You are placing your body and your future spouse at risk if you place yourself in a position to get one of the many STD’s.  Safe sex or protected sex is not only no guarantee against STD’s or potential pregnancy, it violates God divine plan for sexual purity. ”

 

This is the basic message of abstinence.  The main problem with this message is that it sets the bar too low.  Remaining a virgin until one gets married is a worthy desire, but it is an inadequate substitute for true, godly purity.

 

The reason the message of abstinence is inadequate is because godly purity is about a heart and mind of purity – not simply the abstinence of a physical act.   Understanding this distinction is critical in pursuing deep and inward sexual purity.  Consider the following verses:

 

^“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matt. 15:19)

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” (Job 31:1)

^“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Eph. 5:3)

 

Sexual purity from a biblical perspective means that sexual thoughts only occur within a marriage relationship.  Sexual purity is a mind and heart issue.  All impurity begins in the mind.  That is the battleground of pursuing purity.  Sexual acts always begin in the mind.  This is why abstinence or avoiding STD’s are inadequate (they address behavior).   Someone can remain a virgin and yet be filled with immorality in the mind and in various kinds of actions.  This also is the impetus for the question, “how far is too far?”  When sexual purity is relegated to curbing behavior, there will always be a question of where the line should be.

 

However, when purity is pursued in the mind, the line simply becomes anything that instigates impure thoughts.  This is not difficult to determine. 

 

Practically, we have been trying to plant some initial seeds in the minds of our children (who are elementary age).  The window of opportunity we have capitalized on is t.v.  Television shows aimed at elementary children already begin at a young age with the concepts of boyfriend, girlfriend, kissing, etc.  We have had numerous conversations with our children that these kinds of pursuits are not appropriate for their age and are really more appropriate when one gets into college.  When our kids see these things on t.v. now (even among their own age level shows) their radars go up, and they know these things are not appropriate for them.

 

As parents we have a great opportunity to plant seeds before they get into middle school and high school when these feelings become much stronger.  We are trying to build parameters in their minds early in the process that romance is really for those who are much older (even though the media begins planting these thoughts into children who are in elementary and middle school). 

 

Again, this is another opportunity for us as parents to train our kids to know the difference between how the world lives and how followers of Christ live.   They are being inundated already as second and third graders that pursuing romantic feelings is acceptable and normal for kids or even teens in school.  We are doing what we can to shape them in a very different way.  It is helping them develop the muscle of morality when they are still very young. 

 

We pray almost every day for our kids purity – not just that they will be virgins when they get married, but biblical purity in the heart and mind. 

If you still have children living at home I want to encourage you with the difficult task of training them to be critical thinkers.  Parenting is not one of the easy things of life.  We all need to be encouraged and challenged at times with how we parent.  It is hard work.  One of the many challenges of parenting is the balance of teaching our children to respect and obey authority, while at the same time teaching them that it is OK to question authority. 

My six year old son came home a couple of weeks ago with a book from the library at his school he wanted me to read to him.   As I started to read it, I realized the book was coming from an evolutionary perspective on the origin of life.   Our kids don’t go to a Christian school, therefore, evolution is what they get taught.

Evolution is what many people in our society believe, and so I am thankful they are learning it.  It also gives my wife and I a great opportunity to train our kids how to be critical thinkers – that it is actually OK to question authority.  We want them to learn that not everything their teachers teach is ALWAYS right, that not everything their church teaches is ALWAYS right, and that not even what their parents teach is ALWAYS right. 

We want our kids to be submissive to authority and respectful, but we also want them to learn how to use the lens of Scripture to decipher truth from error and to evaluate what they get taught.  Teachers, church leaders, and parents can and will all make mistakes but everything must be tested by Scripture.

We recently sat our third grader, second grader, and kindergartner down and talked about evolution and then talked about Genesis one.  We want them to know that there is a disparity between what the world often believes and what God says.  It was a great conversation. 

We have also already had some brief conversations about other issues in this same vein like homosexuality, abortion, sexuality, the way our society views boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, modesty in dress, friends they have of other religions, etc. 

Out in the world they will and already are engaging in so much stuff.  We want to train them how to think these things through biblically. At the same time we want them to learn how to respect people who believe differently.  We don’t want them to be judgmental against people who may believe abortion should be a choice or homosexuality is simply an acceptable sexual orientation or that all religions lead to God.  We are trying to train our kids to believe differently based on Scripture regarding these and other things, but we also are just as motivated to train them how to love, serve, befriend, and get along with people who believe and practice things we believe are not right.  We want them to avoid relativism (everyone’s views are equally true), and we want them to avoid arrogance (a prideful demeanor of “I’m right and let me prove to you how wrong you are”).

Like I said, parenting is not easy.  It is hard work.  Whether your children go to a Christian school, public school, or are home schooled, I encourage you to teach your children not only what God says but what the world teaches as well (and teach them the delicate balance of how to respect people who believe differently).  Counsel them how to navigate through a world that will bombard them with challenges to their young faith (as well as the delicate balance of respecting authority while at the same time questioning authority).  We don’t simply want clones of ourselves, we want independently thinking children who are following Christ and influencing other children to follow Christ as well. 

And lastly, let me say, it is not too late to teach teenagers these things (or even adults for that matter), but if at all possible, let’s begin instilling these things in our elementary children.   The earlier we can train them to think critically and biblically, the more potential they will have to be leaders of those around them and not simply followers of the masses.

If you are in the trenches right now with this stuff (like we are), and feel like you fail more times than you succeed (like we do), be encouraged and don’t lose heart.  Keep going after it.  You are not alone.  It is worth it in the end.

Sometime last year, I received the following e-mail asking me my perspective on the emerging church movement.  If you don’t know what that is, this e-mail exchange will still make some sense.  I would say we probably have a lot of different opinions on the movement within Grace, but here was my response as simply some food for thought.  Here was the original e-mail. I have changed the name to make it anonymous:

 

Hi, Chris

 

What are your thoughts on the Emerging Church Movement?  How would you define it, are there things associated with it that we should learn from, and are there things associated with it that are dangerous (and if so, how do we combat those things)?  These are questions that my wife and I are processing and would appreciate your input as we seek clarity on this issue.

 

Thanks,

Joe

 

 

My response:

Thanks for the e-mail, Joe.  Again, sorry it has taken me a little while to get back with you.  I didn’t want to give you a trite answer.  Here is how I will answer your question.

 

There have been, are, and will be many “movements” within the Christian church.  An example of some of these movements are the following:  Seeker sensitive movement, Parachurch movement, Charismatic movement, Dominion theology movement, Contemporary Christian music movement, Young Earth/Old Earth Movement, Church Growth/mega church Movement, Liberal Theology Movement, Conservative/Fundamentalist Movement, Liberation theology movement, Home School Movement, House Church Movement, health/wealth movement, emerging church movement, etc.  

 

Most movements are reactionary and while they usually emphasize a good point (and can serve as a correction in the church), they often take things to an extreme and swing the pendulum over to one side.   Believers in the church often negatively react to their positions and arguments, and this becomes a reaction to the reaction.  The end result is that you have polar opposites who argue for and against their positions.   Most of the time the most biblical and balanced truth is somewhere in the middle.  The polarization is unfortunate, because generally there is healthy truth contained within the movement outside of its extreme.

 

The emerging church is no different.  In my humble opinion (and it is only that) this movement is by nature reactionary.  It is a reaction against the traditional church (go to a building to get your spiritual goods and services), it is a reaction against the “Seeker Sensitive” church (performance oriented and spectator oriented), it is a reaction against approaching doctrine as logical proofs that make perfect sense while minimizing mystery and the transcendental, it is a reaction against viewing God and the church through the lenses of Greek culture versus Hebrew culture (left brain/linear in thinking versus right brain/creative and nonlinear in thinking),  it is a reaction against emphasizing the distinctions among denominations versus emphasizing the likenesses, and it is a reaction against these things and much more (both in approaching style and in approaching doctrine).

 

What happens in any movement is that extreme statements are made by some public voices in any given movement, and the critics on the other side use those examples to show the error of the movement as a whole and why it is so unbiblical and dangerous.  And while it is true that those extreme statements are usually unbiblical and should be called out, most don’t have the ability to avoid “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” while they do this.  In other words, most pounce on the extreme statements and cannot look past them to see some of the truth contained in the movement.   Even if a movement can have an overall positive effect and correction to the church at large, the focus becomes exclusively on the extreme statements and further polarization occurs. 

 

These kind of polarizing debates occur within the peak of all these movements.  I really like reading from authors of all the different movements I mentioned above.  I find solid truth in all of them, and at the same time I find some error with some of the more extreme statements and ideas in all of them.  I cannot think of any of these movements that don’t make extreme and unbiblical arguments at times.  If someone were to ask me, I don’t consider myself in the seeker sensitive camp, the mega church camp, the emerging church camp, the liberal church camp, the fundamentalist church camp, the charismatic church camp, or even the house church movement camp.  Yet, at the same time, the polar opposite of each camp would probably label me in all of these because I do believe and practice some of the biblical truth I see in all of them. 

 

As it pertains to the emerging church (or any other camp for that matter), I don’t like some of the extreme statements that I hear from some leaders within these camps, and I would not shy away from declaring them as error.  As you can imagine, if you take any of those issues I raised regarding what the emerging church is reacting to, and you take them to an extreme, you will move into unhealthy and unbiblical perspectives.  I am sure it is not hard to see what those unbiblical positions might look like. While we should never shy away from declaring truth from error, I have really appreciated much of what has been written from this particular movement, and it challenges me to look back into Scripture, to shed some of my presuppositions that I perhaps didn’t know I had, and to make me more biblically balanced. I think most of the movements I have studied have done this for me. 

 

This may be a little broader answer to your question about my take on the emerging church (and may not be specific enough for you).  I think, though, that explaining this broader perspective as a whole on church movements in general helps you understand how I approach these kinds of things, and how I would not agree with certain aspects of emerging church and wholeheartedly agree in other areas.  

 

Feel free to ask me any follow-up or clarification questions – or if you want me to get more specific.  I am certainly no expert in all this – just trying to learn and grow as I journey through it. 

 

Thanks, Joe.

 

Chris

 

 

 

As we begin this series called “An Ancient Walk with God – a survey of the OT” we have some inherent challenges we must recognize as we approach an understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.  We will spend some 35 messages covering the main themes of the OT, but we cannot go into it without recognizing our own cultural and presuppositional biases and assumptions.  Here are some things we need to remember:

3000 years removed from the authors

Different way of life

Different language

Different geography

Written from an Eastern mindset

Higher value of experience over knowledge

Higher value of truth within story over abstract truth

Higher value of mystery over systematic answers

Higher value of holistic thinking over linear thinking

 

 

How fitting it is that the presidential inauguration of America’s first black president comes a day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  This is truly a historic day in our country.  Regardless of what one may think of Obama’s views and politics (both good and bad), I never thought I would witness a dark skin president in my lifetime. 

Some consider Obama the next savior or messiah of the world, and others consider him the next anti-christ (two extremes I personally avoid), but whatever the case, history is being made.  Racism, bigotry, and prejudice have plagued our country for centuries, and there are signs of hope.  

We still have a long way to go in conquering racism, but hopefully we can continue to make progress as Jesus leads us to treat people with dignity and respect regardless of the color of their skin.

I think the below picture shows how historic this inauguration really is for the United States with regard to race.

See below pictures of our 44 presidents.

I had an opportunity earlier this week to pray with some pastors at “A Hope Center” (formerly known as Crisis Pregnancy Center).  We prayed with board members and staff members on behalf of unborn children, parents who are hurting and confused, as well as for the ministry itself. This ministry has been in Fort Wayne for 23 years.  The last 22 years they have had one executive director at the helm – Judi Hapke. 

Judi retired last month, therefore, there is a current search for a new leader.  This ministry has had significant expansion in recent years and is certainly a beacon of light in our community for the marginalized in our society. This Sunday is “Sanctity of Life” Sunday.  Please pray for “A Hope Center” and pray in particular for wisdom as they select their new leader.

This past Sunday I gave everyone at Grace Gathering a very practical but significant challenge.  In our quest to become more like Jesus in the depths of our character, and in our quest to become more engaged in his mission as a missionary to those around us (loving them, serving them, and calling them to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sins), here was our challenge:

1)  To grow in two specific areas of Christ-like character.  The first one I would choose for all of us and the second area each person would choose on his/her own.

The first area is to be more sensitive to the promptings of God’s Spirit in 2009.  As God prompts us in our hearts to help someone, to seek someone’s forgiveness, to challenge someone, or however he prompts us, we should attempt to follow through on that even if inconvenient or uncomfortable. 

I then encouraged everyone to select a second character trait of Jesus to more intentionally pursue this year from the following list (this is just a beginning list of Christ-like traits): compassionate, humble, firm, loving, prayerful, submissive, truthful, approachable, persevering, patient, bold, gentle, giving, faithful, empathetic, merciful, flexible, Spirit-led, discerning, self controlled, sexually pure, joyful, forgiving, disciplined, caring, thankful, simple, self-denying, content, uncompromising, servant-oriented, gracious, etc.

The other major area of challenge I gave was in regard to taking on more of a missionary mindset in 2009 as we intentionally engage in the mission Jesus gave us of loving people and calling them to repentance for salvation. 

I challenged us all to think of two specific people that we interact with:  1) the person we think is the least likely to become a follower of Christ in 2009, and 2) the person we think is most open to repenting and placing faith in Christ this year.  My challenge is that we pray for these two people as regularly as we can, and we pray for the opportunity to love them, serve them, and share the gospel of repentance and faith with them this year. 

Are you willing to take the challenge of becoming more like Jesus in your character and life this year and becoming more engaged in the mission Jesus has given us?

It is time for us to stop talking about what God calls us to do and start living it. 

The new year usually begins with hopes and dreams of what “could be” for 2009.  This is not only true when it comes to our spiritual lives but also in other areas as well.  Take for example the Detroit Lions. I know they were terrible in 2008.  Well, maybe more than terrible.  They were the worst team ever in the history of the NFL.