The Phil Files

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.

What a refreshing break from the routine. I am hiding away in a pretty place reading, resting, and wrting. Sorry, occupational hazard to alliterate. My essentials, a couple of computers, an internet connection, several translations of the Bible, my new Kindle 2 (wow, is that ever great for folks that read like Donna and I do), a beautiful view, books to read, and time to write! Here’s the view:

So what’s been the reading agenda so far?

• The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight (finished)
• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan (finished)
• Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewishness of Jesus Can Transform Your Faith by Ann Spangler & Lois Tverberg (finished)
• A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love by Alan Jacobs (if I have time)
• Gospel of Matthew (many times in multiple versions — in progress)

All of the books are challenging and interesting. I am a big fan of McKnight’s book, The Jesus Creed and did not know what The Blue Parakeet: was about till I got into it. Very interesting read and written well. Moves along, but of course I checked out every note and had to think through a bunch of stuff. Hang on, this book will take your brain and your way of approaching Scripture for a ride.

Crazy Love is Francis Chan as a speaker in written form. It has interactive videos online for the early part of the book. I actually found the latter part of the book more challenging and better reading.

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus will be a hot book on the evangelical market for several reasons:

1. Spangler is a popular author, especially among women.
2. The content and title of the book sounds interesting. It is! I found the first half of the book absolutely outstanding. The second half didn’t seem as crisp. I read every footnote with interest and eagerness. I was very impressed with the conversation with scholarly sources while keeping the message of the book very readable for interested Bible students.
3. Great background information in a readable format to help moderns understand much more of what Jesus said and who He was in His time so we can understand Him for our time.
4. Practical tools for incorporating or experiencing some of the Jewish heritage we share as Christians.

The focus of my time has been and will be the Gospel of Matthew. More will come out about all of this later, Lord willing, but I am absolutely certain that Matthew brings us a great resource that has long been neglected while we gravitate toward the other Gospels. I believe Matthew’s story will be a great Gospel for our times for many of the same reasons it was the most popular Gospel among believers for centuries until recent times.

O, one other thing: while not on the nutrition pyramid, those BBW tater chips and a great view help make study better, more focused, and an act of joyful table fellowship with the Lord as I study and read.

Grace!

It’s vacation time and I’ve been doing some more reading. I’m still wading through Thomas L. Friedman’s very important book, The World is Flat and I’ve deeply read, not just skimmed, Rob Bell’s interesting little book called Velvet Elvis. In addition, I’ve been exploring the Gospel of Matthew and noticing the questions asked by Jesus — and to a lesser extent, the questions asked about Jesus.

This has been an interesting combination. Friedman’s book really has no overt integration point with faith. In fact, that dimension is entirely absent as he looks at our flat world and what it will take for our children and grandchildren to compete in this world. Yet when mixed with Velvet Elvis, a whole world of possiblities, connections, and implications emerge. Spending time listening to Jesus’ questions has also reawakened me to the power of Jesus’ teaching style, depth of conviction, frustration with religion, and force of character. Jesus’ questions have sizzled in my heart as I have read both of these books.

While you may not immediately sync with Velvet Elvis and Bell’s presentation of being a Christ-follower today, you need to know that your kids, if they are in any kind of up and coming youth group are familiar with his work through the Nooma video series. His message not only gains traction with post-modern young people and adults — my own nephew heard in it his own call to be some sort of minister of some kind — it often stirs something powerful in them and moves them toward Jesus. I believe the book is powerful and profound even though it is very short. Even more, it gives you a comprehensible lingo to speak to younger folks about faith in ways that matter. The character of a true Christ-follower, as Bell presents it, opens up a set of values that becomes a powerful tool for our young people to navigate the flat world with integrity, faithfulness, and respect. It calls Christ-followers to a life of sacrifice and surrender, something that Friedman’s book suggests is lacking in most of Western culture’s falling behind in the education and life skills necessary to be a player in the emerging flat world with China, India, and Russia-Eastern Europe brain banks.

Bell’s call to recognize how our faith interacts with all of our world speaks powerfully to the ethic necessary for compassionate flat world existence described as necessary by Friedman. I can’t help but hear many of Jesus’ questions echo through the issues where these two books intersect. Once again, I am humbled, even a bit shamed, at having to recognize afresh the power of the Lord’s call to his followers that is transcultural and trans-chronological. Jesus’ ministry and teaching, along with his questions, can still easily penetrate the heavy armor of culture and time if we will hear them with fresh ears — “Let the one who has ears to listen really hear!”

If you are a die-hard supporter everyting the evangelical media is pumping out, you may find both books a little troubling. That’s all the more reason to read them. Our world is in the middle of a profound change. The world is becoming more open than ever to us as citizens of the planet and followers of the Messiah. We must re-think who are called to be, how we present God’s timeless good news in Jesus, and the way we live in this emerging world as an outpost of Jesus’ grace.

If following Christ has become less important in American culture in our time (because of the reputation of today’s “Church”), how will it do in the world of ideas of a flattened and readily accessible to the educated world? How will we communicate the need to seek Jesus to a world that links Christianity with so much that is wrong in America? Isn’t this all a call to awaken from our religious personality-dominated culture and seek Jesus and his way for ourselves, our families, and our religious communities in fresh incarnations by going back to his ministry, values, and message?

At this time of great opportunity, I know I need to get back into the message of Jesus more than ever. I must “de-encrust” it of all my church and cultural baggage and find myself once more a passionate Christ-seeker rather than a modern Christianity expert and church defender.

Interesting and challenging times are ahead. But, I am convinced that the world has never been more accessible with the genuine message of Jesus and more ready to hear that message, than it is right now and will be in the coming years. I sure don’t want to get caught napping or resting on my religious laurels when the next great awakening occurs. In a flattened world, we will need the leaven of Jesus’ grace and the genuineness of authentic fellowship make life rich, full, and truly human. What a great time to rise to the challenge and follow Jesus!

Come Holy Spirit, and touch our world with holy fire and make me a useable vessel for the Messiah’s message of compassion and character!

Nobody may care, but I thought I’d share what I’m reading right now.

Brian D. McLaren’s very personal The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything and Thomas L. Friedman’s well researched The World is Flat.

Together they are an intresting cocktail.

McLaren’s book is short and written from a personal point of view as a seeker for the heart of Jesus’ message. Some have criticized McLaren in other books about being nebulous about his true faith in Jesus and Christianity, but that faith is more evident here. Others criticize this book for not focusing on the Cross and Jesus’ death, but apparently they didn’t read his introduction. His focus is on Jesus’ message of the Kingdom. It is a wake up call for our current evangelical focus on “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by” and a reminder that Jesus’ followers — folks that should be the Church and the people in whom the Kingdom values are lived — MUST live the Kingdom and be the Kingdom of God now. Those with a bit of scholarly bent will recognize it as a bit of C.H. Dodd’s realized eschatology applied to a new day — for the rest of us who live in the world of cornbread English, it reminds us to be the place where Jesus’ values, dreams, concerns, and lifestyle invade our world now instead of waiting for Kingdom come. (In other words, we must go back to the Sermon on the Mount and get busy living the Kingdom as Jesus did rather than trying to explain why we don’t have to live up to such a rigorous challenge!)

Friedman’s book is long and large. The focus is upon business and preparing our children, corporations, and selves for the new flattened world. The implications are huge — and they are already crashing down upon us. He points to ten “world flatteners” that have changed how the world does its business in the flattened world. For Jesus-followers, the flattened world and Friedman’s book are reminders that we must look far beyond our culturally entrenched and ethnocentric manifestations of the church and return to thinking in much more expansive ways about people, our world, and our mission in it as Jesus-followers.

Jesus’ last words on earth, his reiteration of God’s dream first revealed to Abraham many years ago (Genesis 12 cf. Revelation 7:9-12), is for God’s people to bring the “secret message of Jesus” to all peoples (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). More than a dying wish, this was Jesus’ resurrection manifesto.

These two books mixed together in my heart like a potent drug cocktail to fight the parochial and nationalistic self-interest of modern “churchanity” that so easily takes residence in me. The Father’s will to be done and his Kingdom to come “on earth as it is in heaven” has to mean more than that Jesus’ ultimate return to take us home. It must also mean that I am willing to live the life of Jesus’ Kingdom, his mysterious and often upside down way of life, now.

I highly recommend this cocktail to those who have lost their immunity to the raging church self-interest and narrow nationalism that is often far too present in today’s “churchanity” that masquerades as Christianity.