The Phil Files

Well, here we are. I’m sitting in the parking lot of doc in a box waiting to hear what critter now inhabits Megan’s body. We’re worried it’s the flu. Cough, high temp and she doesn’t run temp, and aches. Flu is always bad, but on such a beautiful day with several more to come? Just unfair. We’d appreciate a prayer in our direction and we’ll send one up for you, too.

Fall has been incredible nice in West Texas this year. Early rain and moderate temperatures and even several days without wind. We’ve got a touch of color on the trees — yes, we do have a few — and it actually feels like autumn.

Donna grew up in southern Ohio and she has always maintained that West Texas didn’t have autumn — with it’s smell, the color of leaves, the gentle chill in the air — just FALL: one day it’s 90, a norther blows through and it’s 22, then on the third day the leaves die and the wind blows them into Mexico. I’d have to say I think she is right most years, but this one has been beautiful.

I will go to my place in the country, hanging out in trees waiting to see walks by and listening to the night and then morning turn on and see what God has in store this evening and tomorrow morning.

And as I watch the leaves change to gold and brown, I am going to continue to hope it’s a great fall to love burnt orange. Hook ‘em and keep setting those great examples on an off the field Colt and Jordan. And to my favorite gunslinger, Taylor, you have displayed such grace in the unfairness and insanity of a pirate’s stinking ship — keep the faith brother.

Blessings to all of ya’ll for a great autumn weekend!

I do not know about you, but I get fed up by all the trash on TV and the web. Even worse, is the trashing of other people that goes on via the web. But rather than become part of the trash talking and trash serving side of the web, I want to remind you of the good side to the web and challenge you to do good via the net!

Heartlight.org started on April 3 in 1996. By God’s grace, we reach hundreds of thousands of different folks every month, ten of thousands a day. These folks come from over 175 countries. They use our Heartlight.org resources — articles, devotionals, graphics, and blogs — to help bless their own lives and the lives of others. Only God knows how many people are blessed downstream from these first time users. But Heartlight.org is much bigger than just our main web site. In addition we provide or are partnered with the following free resources:

• searchgodsword.org — A Bible search, commentary, and original language tool
• iluminalma.com.br — The Portuguese version of Heartlight with it’s own content
• hermeneutica.com.br — A Portuguese resource for pastors, church leaders, and teachers
• radiokd.ru — A Russian Christian Music Radio station with daily study resources
• yssa.nl — A Dutch site using Heartlight resources for daily devotionals and resources
• laluzdelalma.com — A Spanish version of Today’s Verse
• homegathering.net – A mobile version website with Heartlight.org resources and resources for home gatherings (house church worship and Bible studies)
• heartlight.mobi — The mobile device version of Heartlight.org (works best for iPhones, PalmPre, Blackberry browsers)

This is just our little corner of the world, but let’s talk about doing good, working for social justice, and making a difference in the lives of others in real ways. Several interests I have and am invested in personally seek to do good in the world by releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name, providing clean water, providing mosquito nets, giving business opportunities through mico-loans, and other tools for people who do not have access to those.

Compassion International is a favorite ministry for doing good for children. Donna and I currently sponsor three children and I have been to see one of them on a Compassion trip to Uganda, Africa in February of 2008. This life changing trip was a great opportunity for several of us who were on the web to create a buz and get a lot of folks more involved in sponsoring children through Compassion. Here’s the YouTube video of my home visit to our little girl:

You can read more about this visit in my Heartlight article.

In addition to Compassion, several other related “do something good” efforts made possible by the web that I like are:

• BiteBack — providing mosquito nets to prevent Malaria, a leading killer of children in many under-developed parts of the world. Along with unclean water, Malaria kills more children than war or other diseases and this disease is largely preventable with mosquito nets and the planting of certain trees and plants that drive away mosquitoes.
• charity: water — providing clean drinking water for the billion folks in our world without it. Along with Malaria, unclean water kills more children than war or other diseases and these water-borne diseases are largely preventable with clean water.
• Village of Hope — rescuing children from all sorts of poverty, war, and being orphaned, this ministry in Ghana is a powerful tool of giving children a new hope for this life and connecting them with the life of Jesus.
• Eternal Threads — providing a business opportunity to help folks out of poverty and offering purses and bags for use and for gifts for Westerners and helps monetize poor families through a sustainable system of lifting folks out of poverty and giving them the dignity of doing it through work.
• Pockets of Dreams — little girl dresses made by those in need funds and jobs in under-developed countries: great for gifts and helps monetize poor families through a sustainable system of lifting folks out of poverty and giving them the dignity of doing it through work.
• Kiva — micro-loans that help folks in undeveloped countries start businesses and then pay back their loans: proceeds from loan pay back then provide for more loans, which becomes a self-sustaining system of lifting folks out of poverty and giving them the dignity of doing it through work.
• Christian Homes and Family Services — a great organization that helps women who have unexpected pregnancies work their way through the decisions of parenting and adoption and helps families looking to adopt find a child for them. A growing emphasis also involves foster care and foster-to-adopt programs. We love to give donations in honor of those we love as gifts for Christmas, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and other special events.

Don’t know what you are doing for Christmas, but how about using the upcoming holidays to center your family on giving to those in need and purchasing gifts that help lift people out of poverty. Fed up with what’s bad? Then join me and others who are using the web to do good, work for social justice, and give folks a chance to do something better in their lives!

He has shown all you people what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 TNIV).

You can take it to the bank! Jesus’ promises can be trusted. How do I know? Look at all the tough promises he made — going to Jerusalem to die, that he would be rejected and resurrected, that he would lay down his life for his sheep, that the shepherd would be killed and the sheep be scattered … — and he kept those. So if he was willing to keep the tough ones to show us his love and redeem us, how much more will he not also keep the ones that include us in his grace and bring us to the Father?

That’s what my heartlight.org article, “Promises Kept,” is all about this week: Jesus’ promises can be trusted. Take a read and then I’d love to hear your response to the following questions (or, even if you don’t read the article, what’s your take on the questions?)

What are your favorite promises of Jesus?

* Why can you trust these promises to be true?

* What do they help you look forward to experiencing with God in the future?

* How do they help give you reassurance in difficult times?

Why do you think we tend to forget Jesus’ promises when we are going through times of trouble?

How does Jesus’ proof of his faithfulness to the hard and painful promises give us assurance that he will keep the glorious promises?

What can you do to help some other believer hear and accept the promises of Jesus?

For God so loved the world, He did not send a committee!

I remember when I first read this bumper sticker 14-15 years ago in church parking lot. I laughed out loud even by myself. Being involved in church ministry for well over 30 years, I know our tendency to make everything into a program and then create a committee to carry out that program. In the years since, I’ve seen and hear this bumper sticker modified in different ways. For God so loved the world, He didn’t send …

• a program.
• a clergyman.
• an initiative.
• a politician.
• a parachurch ministry.
• a radio program.
• a book.
• a philosopher (or philosophy).
• etc.

Now don’t misunderstand: there is nothing inherently wrong with any of the above. But God didn’t send one of those, He sent Jesus, His Son.

And just as God sent Jesus into the world, Jesus has sent us! (Matthew 28:18-20; John 17:18; 20:21) We are the ones called to carry out Jesus’ ministry in the world. No wonder that one of the key images of Jesus’ church is “the Body of Christ.” We are His presence in the world. And since we are sent into the world as Jesus was, that changes everything … especially our sense of strategy, purpose, mission, and evangelism.

In my Heartlight.org article this week, also called Incarnational, I try to distinguish between the difference of looking at the Great Commission of Jesus as an evangelism passage or a call to incarnational ministry. I tried to define incarnational ministry and proclaiming, training, and living the Good News of the Kingdom with people. In our church, we try to define our mission in similar terms. We want to be God’s community front porch — a place where folks can meet  God and His family. But for that to happen, we know we have to invite them into the life of Jesus (proclaim), include them in the family of Jesus (live), and involve them in the mission of Jesus (train).

Incarantaional ministry means that we have to enter the worlds of those who do not know Jesus, walk alongside them, and accompany them through the transformation the Holy Spirit carries out in their lives when they yield to the Lordship of Jesus. If we don’t, we’ve just spoken a message — we’ve only given them a drive by sound-byte of the Kingdom of God. God didn’t do that. His message, His Word, was enfleshed in Jesus (John 1:1-18). How can we do anything less?

Cody is  friend on our Refresh planning team who recently moved out of town. As I was thinking through these ideas of incarnational ministry, like a gift from heaven, Cody’s email arrived where he pointed us to the following video trying to capture the essential difference of God’s offer of salvation in Jesus versus other religious answers. It is a fundamental difference. God didn’t send a message or even just a messenger. God came and entered our mess Himself, vulnerable to our stuff, to include us.

Here are some discussion questions for home gatherings or small groups. I’d love to get your take on some or all of them and the whole concept of incarnational ministry.

What is difference between evangelism and incarnational ministry?

How can such an approach make your life more purposeful?

Do you think a good definition of incarnational ministry is “people who proclaim, train, and live the Good News of Jesus alongside those they want to reach”?

Which of the three is most important — proclaim, train, or live the Good News?

Can we fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus and leave out any of these three elements?

What do you need to do to incorporate an incarnational approach of Good News Kingdom living into your daily life?

How can such an approach make your life more purposeful?

Where can you incorporate this incarnational approach to Good News Kingdom living into your daily life?

How does it work in your family? (Deuteronomy 6:1-9)
How does it work in your workplace or school? (1 Peter 3:15)
How does it work in your public life? (Matthew 5:13-16)

Who is someone with whom you can partner in an accountability commitment to fulfill the Great Commission in your world?

My friend and ministry partner, Vann, suggested I take a look at Ed Stetzer’s blog on the decline of Southern Baptists and the trend stats that suggest this is going to continue. As I read through the post, I was struck by several things that Ed emphasized and the implications for those of us who are committed to Jesus Christ as Son of God and Lord and the authority of Scripture, but who are not Baptists.

First, Ed warned against blaming any one thing or group and scapegoating them. These are bigger and systemic issues as well as cultural challenges that we face in our churches and groups.

Second, the temptation is to “turn left” and soften some theological stances is not the answer. The research suggests that softening doctrinal stances, especially on the authority of Scripture and the unique and singular Lordship of Jesus, only speeds up the decline.

Third, we must recognize we live in a challenging culture, but as Ed says:

Is the culture getting worse? Sure it is. But we should be the ones giving a reason for our hope rather than hoping for a reason [to explain our decline].

His suggestion is a renewal of Great Commission passion and seize this truly bad news as an opportunity for transformational change:

We have been lulled into evangelistic complacency and missional inaction. … I think we need to see this as the bad news it is but also an opportunity to change. … It is an opportunity for discovering a regenerate church membership living on mission.
It is an open door to pray for God’s reviving of the church.

The question Ed leaves all of us with is this — because every careful observer realizes that the influence of a genuine Christian faith has lost significant ground in Western culture and is losing more every day: if change only occurs when we feel enough pain to want to change, then do we feel enough pain? Will we respond, or will we simply look the other way and stay on our current (and declining) course of inaction?

In a time of religious consumerism, what will we do to live for Jesus and help others find their hope in Him?

Vann and I will begin a discussion related to this issue, and others, using the book Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Tullian Tchividjian. Look for the discussion on each of our blogs (click for Vann’s Blog) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Hope you will join the discussion.

This week’s Hearlight.org article, “The Power to Risk,” furnishes the background for this post. I would encourage you to read the article and please, I’d love to get your input into this discussion.

So frequently, our first reaction to anything that calls for risk in churchland is to pull out the old and often repeated maxim: “I’d rather be safe than sorry.” This maxim — or more accurately, this excuse — places anything new into the spiritually questionable category. Little by little, this mentality can so pervade a group that it gets to the point that it are afraid of doing anything for fear it might mess something up. The group gets so afraid of messing up, that it ends up doing nothing and thinking that it should be should be rewarded for simply existing. The Master, however, in Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, makes clear that the those who use this “play it safe” mentality with what God’s has entrusted to them are “evil and lazy.”

I love this Frances Chan piece on this principle that dramatically brings home the foolishness of the “play it safe” mentality:

So what are you called by Jesus to risk for the Kingdom? Have you thought about it? I would love for you to put down some specific things for you to risk for the Lord. (There are questions that follow the very end of this post to help you consider these things.

And as you try to discover that one calling Jesus is challenging you to embrace, view this sarcastic piece written to make us laugh and maybe get a little bit angry as we peer into a community called  Bubble Creek Canyon. We would probably feel spiritually protected here, but I am not sure how much good we would be able to do for the Kingdom.

LIFE Questions to Consider:

Why do you think so many Bible-believing followers of Jesus approach life and their discipleship with the idea, “I would rather be safe than sorry.”

Read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 and discuss the following questions:

• Is the theme of this parable using our talents?

• Look at verses 18 and verses 24-30: what was the problem with this servant?

• How did his view of God effect his decision to just bury his “bag of gold” (his talent)?

• How did this servant practice the “better safe than sorry” principle in his use of what the master entrusted to him?

• What was the verdict of the master on this servant and why?

Jesus called His followers to be His witnesses – to tell all that He had done in their lives and in His ministry – to the whole world (Acts 1:8).

• Why do you think it is so hard for folks to “witness” to what Christ has done in their lives today?

• When is the last time you heard a follower of Jesus say, “We cannot help but speak of what we have seen and heard”? (cf. Acts 4:18-20)

Do you think that most of Jesus’ modern followers’ inability to witness to Him is tied to their unwillingness to risk for Him and need His presence in their lives?

What promises about Jesus’ presence in our lives can you remember and what are they tied to in our lives? (Here are so examples to get you started:)

• Matthew 28:18-20
• Hebrews 13:5-6
• Romans 8:32-39
• Matthew 25:31-46