Happy Birthday DEAN!

Reach Men, period.

Does Preaching Matter?

Jesus thought so....


Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

To Catch a Mouse

Brad Pitt on God

In a 2007 interview for Parade, actor Brad Pitt describes how he stumbled, as C.S. Lewisand Michael Prowse and Erik Reece before him, over God’s ego.

Pitt was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. For a while, his religion worked. But not for long.

Religion works. I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn't last for me.

Why not? He points to the ego of God.

I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, “You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!” It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

So there it is again.

God is infinitely wise, just, holy, strong, and good. But God’s command that we see him for what he is, and be glad about it, is the reason Pitt found God unintelligible. God’s god-ness has always been the main problem.

There is an answer to the seeming egomania of God, and his demand that we embrace him as the supreme—and supremely satisfying—Treasure of the universe:

Reason #1 — He is supremely valuable and supremely satisfying.
Reason #2 — Receiving him as such is the only way we will find full, everlasting joy.
Reason #3 — Therefore, his demand that we do so is love, not egomania.

Pray for the thousands of Brad Pitts to see that God’s demand for worship is a demand that we enjoy what is supremely enjoyable.


(HT: Desiring God)

Rejected

"Get that weak YMCA mess outta here"!    :)

Are you a Church Planter? Are you reaching men? Mark Driscoll

Why Should an existing church plant a church? part 5

D. As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily 'birthed' by an older 'mother' congregation. Often the excitement and new leaders and new ministries and additional members and income 'washes back' into the mother church in various ways and strengthens and renews it. Though there is some pain in seeing good friends and some leaders go away to form a new church, the mother church usually experiences a surge of high self-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members.

However, a new church in the community usually confronts churches with a major issue--the issue of 'kingdom-mindedness'. New churches, as we have seen, draw most of their new members (up to 80%) from the ranks of the unchurched, but they will always attract some people out of existing churches. That is inevitable. At this point, the existing churches, in a sense, have a question posed to them: "Are we going to rejoice in the 80%--the new people that the kingdom has gained through this new church, or are we going to bemoan and resent the three families we lost to it?"

In other words, our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city.

Any church that is more upset by their own small losses rather than the kingdoms large gains is betraying its narrow interests. Yet, as we have seen, the benefits of new church planting to older congregations is very great, even if that may not be obvious initially.

SUMMARY

If we briefly glance at the objections to church planting in the introduction, we can now see the false premises beneath the statements. 

A. Assumes that older congregations can reach newcomers as well as new congregations. But to reach new generations and people groups will require both renewed older churches and lots of new churches. 

B. Assumes that new congregations will only reach current active churchgoers. But new churches do far better at reaching the unchurched, and thus they are the only way to increase the 'churchgoing pie'. 

C. Assumes that new church planting will only discourage older churches. There is a prospect of this, but new churches for a variety of ways, are one of the best ways to renew and revitalize older churches. 

D. Assumes that new churches only work where the population is growing. Actually, they reach people wherever the population is changing. If new people are coming in to replace former residents, or new groups of people are coming in--even though the net pop figure is stagnant--new churches are needed.

Why Should an existing church plant a church? part 4

C. We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ. Why?

1. First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. There is plenty of resistance to the idea that we need to plant new churches to reach the constant stream of 'new' groups and generations and residents. Many congregations insist that all available resources should be used to find ways of helping existing churches reach them. However, there is no better way to teach older congregations about new skills and methods for reaching new people groups than by planting new churches. It is the new churches that will have freedom to be innovative and they become the 'Research and Development' department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations were too timid to try a particular approach or were absolutely sure it would 'not work here'. But when the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves.

2. Second, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body. In older congregations, leaders emphasize tradition, tenure, routine, and kinship ties. New congregations, on the other hand, attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation and future orientation. Many of these men and women would never be attracted or compelled into significant ministry apart from the appearance of these new bodies. Often older churches 'box out' many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts would otherwise not be utilized in the work of the Body. These new leaders benefit the whole city-Body eventually.

3. Third, the new churches challenge other churches to self-examination. The "success" of new churches often challenges older congregations in general to evaluate themselves in substantial ways. Sometimes it is only in contrast with a new church that older churches can finally define their own vision, specialties, and identity. Often the growth of the new congregation gives the older churches hope that 'it can be done', and may even bring about humility and repentance for defeatist and pessimistic attitudes. Sometimes, new congregations can partner with older churches to mount ministries that neither could do by themselves.

4. Fourth, the new church may be an 'evangelistic feeder' for a whole community. The new church often produces many converts who end up in older churches for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the new church is very exciting and outward facing but is also very unstable or immature in its leadership. Thus some converts cannot stand the tumultuous changes that regularly come through the new church and they move to an existing church. Sometimes the new church reaches a person for Christ, but the new convert quickly discovers that he or she does not 'fit' the socio-economic make up of the new congregation, and gravitates to an established congregation where the customs and culture feels more familiar. Ordinarily, the new churches of a city produce new people not only for themselves, but for the older bodies as well.

Sum: Vigorous church planting is one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city, as well as the best single way to grow the whole Body of Christ in a city.

Why Should an existing church plant a church? part 3

B. We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION. Some facts--

2. New churches best reach the unchurched--period. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 101-5 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations.2 This means that the average new congregation will bring 6-8 times more new people into the life of the Body of Christ than an older congregation of the same size.

So though established congregations provide many things that newer churches often cannot, older churches in general will never be able to match the effectiveness of new bodies in reaching people for the kingdom. 

Why would this be? As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressures lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of its members and constituents, rather than toward those outside its walls. This is natural and to a great degree desirable. Older congregations therefore have a stability and steadiness that many people thrive on and need. This does not mean that established churches cannot win new people. In fact, many non-Christians will only be reached by churches with long roots in the community and the trappings of stability and respectability.

However, new congregations, in general, are forced to focus on the needs of its non-members, simply in order to get off the ground. So many of its leaders have come very recently from the ranks of the un-churched, that the congregation is far more sensitive to the concerns of the non-believer. Also, in the first two years of our Christian walk, we have far more close, face-to- face relationships with non-Christians than we do later. Thus a congregation filled with people fresh from the ranks of the un-churched will have the power to invite and attract many more non-believers into the events and life of the church than will the members of the typical established body.

What does this mean practically? If we want to reach our city--should we try to renew older congregations to make them more evangelistic, or should we plant lots of new churches? But that question is surely a false either-or dichotomy. We should do both! Nevertheless, all we have been saying proves that, despite the occasional exceptions, the only widescale way to bring in lots of new Christians to the Body of Christ in a permanent way is to plant new churches.

To throw this into relief, imagine Town-A and Town-B and Town-C are the same size, and they each have 100 churches of 100 persons each. But in Town-A, all the churches are over 15 years old, and then the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town will be shrinking, even if four or five of the churches get very 'hot' and double in attendance. In Town- B, 5 of the churches are under 15 years old, and they along with several older congregations are winning new people to Christ, but this only offsets the normal declines of the older churches. Thus the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town will be staying the same. Finally, in Town-C, 30 of the churches are under 15 years old. In this town, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers will be on a path to grow 50% in a generation.3

Why Should an existing church plant a church? part 2

2. Paul's whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St.Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf. Acts 16:9,12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5-"appoint elders in every town"). 

Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had 'fully preached' the gospel in a region and that he had 'no more work' to do there (cf. Romans 15:19,23). This means Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it. Once he had accomplished this in a city, he moved on. He knew that the rest that needed to happen would follow.

Response: 'But,' many people say, 'that was in the beginning. Now the country (at least our country) is filled with churches. Why is church planting important now?" We also plant churches because--

B. We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION. Some facts--

1. New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups. First (a) younger adults have always been disproportionately found in newer congregations. Long-established congregations develop traditions (such as time of worship, length of service, emotional responsiveness, sermon topics, leadership-style, emotional atmosphere, and thousands of other tiny customs and mores), which reflect the sensibilities of long-time leaders from the older generations who have the influence and money to control the church life. This does not reach younger generations.

Second, (b) new residents are almost always reached better by new congregations. In older congregations, it may require tenure of 10 years before you are allowed into places of leadership and influence, but in a new church, new residents tend to have equal power with long-time area residents.

Last, (c) new socio-cultural groups in a community are always reached better by new congregations. For example, if new white-collar commuters move into an area where the older residents were farmers, it is likely that a new church will be more receptive to the myriad of needs of the new residents, while the older churches will continue to be oriented to the original social group. And new racial groups in a community are best reached by a new church that is intentionally multi-ethnic from the start. 

For example: if an all-Anglo neighborhood becomes 33% Hispanic, a new, deliberately bi-racial church will be far more likely to create 'cultural space' for newcomers than will an older church in town. Finally, brand new immigrant groups nearly always can only be reached by churches ministering in their own language. If we wait until a new group is assimilated into American culture enough to come to our church, we will wait for years without reaching out to them.

[Note: Often, a new congregation for a new people-group can be planted within the overall structure of an existing church. It may be a new Sunday service at another time, or a new network of house churches that are connected to a larger, already existing congregation. Nevertheless, though it may technically not be a new independent congregation, it serves the same function.]

In summary, new congregations empower new people and new peoples much more quickly and readily than can older churches. Thus they always have and always will reach them with greater facility than long-established bodies. This means, of course, that church planting is not only for 'frontier regions' or 'pagan' countries that we are trying to see become Christian. Christian countries will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting simply to stay Christian!

Zac Smith- God is Good

(HT: Perry Noble)

The Black Falcon!

Why Should an existing church plant a church? Tim Keller

WHY PLANT CHURCHES

Tim Keller Redeemer Presbyterian Church Feb. 2002

The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for

 1) the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and 

2) the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. 

Nothing else--not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes--will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.

The normal response to discussions about church planting is something like this:

A. 'We already have plenty of churches that have lots and lots of room for all the new people who have come to the area. Let's get them filled before we go off building any new ones."

B. 'Every church in this community used to be more full than it is now. The churchgoing public is a 'shrinking pie'. A new church here will just take people from churches already hurting and weaken everyone.'

C. 'Help the churches that are struggling first. A new church doesn't help the ones we have that are just keeping their nose above water. We need better churches, not more churches.'

These statements appear to be 'common sense' to many people, but they rest on several wrong assumptions. The error of this thinking will become clear if we ask 'Why is church planting so crucially important?' Because--

A. We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

1. Jesus' essential call was to plant churches. Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The 'Great Commission' (Matt.28: 18-20) is not just a call to 'make disciples' but to 'baptize'. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47). The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a ‘decision’ for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these 'decisions' disappear and never result in changed lives. Why? Many, many decisions are not really conversions, but often only the beginning of a journey of seeking God. (Other decisions are very definitely the moment of a 'new birth', but this differs from person to person.) Only a person who is being 'evangelized' in the context of an on-going worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C.Peter Wagner can say, "Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven."1

Good Dunk

Every flop begins with "K"!

Look at Greg Paulus doing his best rendition of the Dook Flop!

The Future Looks Bright

Kendall Marshall set a UNC ACC record yesterday against FSU with 16 assists. Below is his great game against Va. Tech. In it you can see glimmers of greatness. He is a pure pass first point guard. I know he will still struggle at times, being a freshman, but I don't think he will be a quitter. GO HEELS

"Church is not for you" - hmmm

Have you ever heard this phrase: "Now that you are here realize this church is no longer for you".

Kevin DeYoung gracefully explains why this is a phrase that needs to be retired. I agree.

I first heard the line from a pastor friend that I like and respect very much. I thought the phrase was catchy, in your face, and made a good point so I repeated it several times. Soon I noticed others, hearing it from me, starting doing the same.

But before too long I began to question the wisdom of those words. In fact, it really only took a few minutes of sustained reflection (after using the phrase for a few months) to realize that the line, though loaded with good intent, was lopsided and biblically untenable. The line is one that pastors like to use to startle their congregations out of their holy huddles. It goes like this: “Church is not for you.”

On our best days, here’s what pastors are trying to say: “Don’t just think about yourself. Don’t get comfortable here because you have your friends and your programs. Think about the people who aren’t here yet. Think about our neighbors who need to hear the gospel. Let’s be willing to make some sacrifices for the sake of the lost. Let’s forgo some of our preferences and some of our ease so that new people can find a home here. We have salvation. We have a church family. We know Jesus Christ and have the hope of eternal life. Out there they have hell and are without God in the world. Let’s not be an ingrown church when there are so many lost people outside these walls.”

That’s what I meant to say by the line “Church is not for you.” I’m sure that’s what my friend meant as well (though some people may mean worse things). But as much as pastors may want to emphasize evangelism and outreach, telling the congregation “Church is not for you” is the wrong way to go about it.

One of God’s great gifts to the Christian is the church. It is for us, because God is for us too. The worship, though ultimately for God, is meant for our edification–for believers’ edification, not immediate resonance with nonbelievers (though we want our services to be intelligible to them too). Just as important, think of the one another commands. Church should be a place to bear each others burdens, meet physical needs, express comfort, demonstrate care, exercise hospitality, exchange greetings, offer encouragement, administer rebuke, receive forgiveness–basically faith working itself out in love. And isn’t love for each other the distinguishing mark of the Christian community?

One other thing: don’t forget that the Great Commission calls us to make disciples notmake decisions. I am all in favor of decisions for Christ (rightly conceived), but the church’s aim is not simply for conversions. Jesus told the disciples (and by extension the church I believe) that their commission was to teach the nations to obey all that he had commanded. We must grow up in Christ as much as we must come to Christ. So Sunday school is not a distraction from mission. Small group Bible studies (again, done well) are not some lame expression of bubble Christianity that take us away from the real purposes of the church. Sermons, even the kind that go into disputed areas of theology or highlight doctrinal distinctives, do not have to be exercises in stuffing fat Christians full of more knowledge while the world perishes without Christ. Theology is not the enemy of conversion and wanting church life to be a blessing is not what’s wrong with the world.

Amen to evangelism. Amen to services that recognize the presence of non-Christians. Amen to poking long-time believers to serve in ways besides the reading of books. But boo-hoo to chiding church members for wanting a church that loves them, teaches them, and watches over their souls. The phrase sounds prophetic and I understand the good intentions, but there is simply no biblical warrant for saying to God’s people “church is not for you.” Better to say ala the Apostle Peter: “Church is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God calls to himself.”

John MacArthur on the Church

John MacArthur commenting on 1 Thess. 5:12 said this about the local church:

And so, this section will be instruction for life in the church, very practical, very basic, very straight forward, very direct. And the church needs a good healthy dose of this kind of instruction, believe me. If there's anything that grieves my heart across America, it is the fact that we have so many unhealthy churches, so many churches that do not know the power of God, the presence of God, the peace of God, the joy of God, that do not experience all of the blessings of God that He pours out to those who are walking according to His will and moving ahead toward being like Jesus Christ. We have many many unhealthy churches. It's a continual grief to me to talk to pastors who are so deeply burdened because they are in a church that demonstrates a lack of spiritual commitment. It also is a grief to me to hear from people who are in churches where their leadership is not committed to spiritual growth and development. This country is filled with busy churches and some big churches but many unhealthy churches. One rather cynical writer looking at the church said that the church reminded him of Noah's ark. Of what he said, "If it weren't for the storm outside, you couldn't stand the stench inside." That's a cynical view of the church. That's a jaded view of the church.

And it's far from the reality of what the church should be and what the true church is. The church is the most blessed institution on the earth, the only one built by the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one He said He promised to bless and the gates of hell would never be able to hold it in. Now we're not saying the church doesn't have difficulty, it does. The reason the church has difficulty is because the church has people and we're all fallen and we're all sinful and we're all imperfect and we have weaknesses and we face difficulties. Fallen and sinful people make up the church, weak people make up the church. And in many ways we have to say the church is a hospital. It's not a place for perfect people. It's not a place for people who imagine they're perfect. It's a place for people who admit they're not and they want help. And it isn't until the church admits that that it begins to move in the right direction. Certainly the church has faults.

You always hear people say, "Well I don't want to join the church there's too many hypocrites." To which the proper response is, "Well come on in, we've got room for more." Sure we have faults. The admission of that, the recognition of that is the basic stance from which you begin to grow, from which you begin to move in the right direction. We have to start with the confession of our failures and our weaknesses. So we acknowledge the church is going to have trouble. I've never seen a church that didn't. That's because people have problems and leaders have problems, relationships therefore are stretched and strained and made difficult.

Then you can add to that the reality that Satan works hard against the church and so do his supernatural agents and so do his human agents. But still, the true church is far better than any other organization, association or institution on the face of the earth because it moves toward being like Jesus Christ, because it represents Him in the world, because its life is energized by the Holy Spirit, because it lives under the instruction of the Word of God, because it applies spiritual power mutually through fellowship and service among its members. It therefore is the greatest association, organization, institution in the face of the earth. But it is admittedly people in process. We're not where we ought to be but we're not where we were. We're moving in that direction.