My wife and I started a couples Bible study tonight.  We picked up a Fisherman Bible Studyguide today on marriage.  I’ve done a couple of these Fisherman studies before, even taught from them, and thought they were pretty good source material.

I never read the “How to Use This Studyguide” section, so I don’t know if what I read tonight was new:

Fisherman studyguides are based on the inductive approach to Bible study.  Inductive study is discovery study; we discover what the Bible says as we ask questions about its content and search for answers.  This is quite different from the process in which a teacher tells a group about the Bible - what it means and what to do about it. In inductive study, God speaks directly to each of us through his word.

I understand why people have a problem accepting teaching from others, particularly when they disagree.  It’s pride.  We all truly believe that our idea is better than the other guy’s. (continue reading…)

I’m in a pretty sour mood right now. At first it was because I’ve been hurting for that poor girl in Florida who got beat up for a YouTube video. Now I’m ticked off at her dad.

Her parents blamed the Internet for the incident.

“These Web sites are creating a space for criminal activity, beating, fights,” Patrick Lindsay said. [...]

“I’m very upset with these Internet sites,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, MySpace is the anti-Christ for children. I’m going to carry this as far as I can.”

Talk about tilting at windmills. How about blaming the girls that did this? How about blaming the people who watch the videos, thereby encouraging things like this? Even some indirect blame on the parents would have been acceptable…but blaming the internet and MySpace?

Granted, there’s plenty wrong with MySpace, which is why my profile still has a picture of my wife about 4 months pregnant. But when it comes to six people deciding to beat up an innocent person - Hell, even a guilty person - let’s place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the perpetrators.

Ok, now that I’m over that, here’s the real point of this post. There are some Christians who believe that the task of the Church is to restore the world, whether that be through service or control. The group who truly believes that we are to do it by control (Dominionism) is so small that it barely merits discussion. Sure, you’ll hear people, particularly those like Andrew Sullivan (though he prefers the term “christianist”), attribute these qualities to “many evangelicals”…that’s bollocks.

Those who believe that we are to do it through service and love have a larger following. They believe that as a result of the influence of Christians, and good people from other religions (or no religion), the world is getting better. Progress has been, is being, and will be made. They are Progressives. (continue reading…)

First off, ChurchMarketingSucks.com got the ball rolling on a network of local church marketing labs, one of which is located in Tulsa. The first meeting is Monday the 7th. If you’re interested in marketing, communications, graphics, or web design for your church, meet us at Panera Bread at 71st and Garnett at 6.

I’ve started reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. In the early chapters he makes some statements about faith and doubt, and it occurred to me that, at least in recent history, the church has done a terrible job communicating the limits of faith and the benefits of doubt. (continue reading…)

I don’t often read something I so whole-heartedly agree with, so here it is, in its entirety:

Mark Driscoll discussing Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4:

“And in his greatest act of love for this woman, Jesus later hung on a Roman cross- punished between two thieves- dying for the many sins of this woman. Jesus then rose from death and ascended into heaven to prepare an eternal home for her. He then sent the Holy Spirit to empower her new life and ministry.

Reformission is ultimately about being like Jesus, through his empowering grace. One of the underlying keys to reformission is knowing that neither the freedom of Christ nor our freedom in Christ is intended to permit us to dance as close to sin as possible without crossing the line. But both are intended to permit us to dance as close to sinners as possible by crossing the lines that unnecessarily separate the people God has found from those he is still seeking. To be a Christian, literally, is to be a ‘little Christ.’ It is imperative that Christians be like Jesus, by living freely within the culture as missionaries who are as faithful to the Father and his gospel as Jesus was in his own time and place.

I am advocating not sin but freedom. That freedom is denied by many traditions and theological systems because they fear that some people will us their freedom to sin against Christ. But rules, regulations, and the pursuit of outward morality are ultimately incapable of preventing sin. They can only, at best, rearrange the flesh and get people to stop drinking, smoking, and having sex, only to start being proud of their morality. Jesus’ love for us and our love for him are, frankly, the only tethers that will keep us from abusing our freedom, yet they will enable us to venture as far into the culture and into relationships with lost people as Jesus did, because we go with him.

So reformission requires that God’s people understand their mission with razor-sharp clarity. The mission is to be close to Jesus. This transforms our hearts to love what he loves, hate what he hates, and to pursue relationships with lost people in hopes of connecting with them and, subsequently connecting them with him. This actually protects us from sin, because the way to avoid sin is not to avoid sinners but to stick close to Jesus.”

The Radical Reformission, 39-40.

(H/T: Enjoying God Fellowship)

I’d like to start a new feature here: my Rules for Life. I’ll post two or three a week starting today.

• Rule #1: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength.
• Rule #2: Love your neighbor as yourself.

These two don’t need a whole lot of explanation. The main thing I want to point out is the order and the separation. Many people in the church today forget that loving God is the greatest commandment, “and the second is like it.” That means we must love our neighbors without compromising our fidelity to God.

The problem with the first two rules is that they’re just nebulous ideas that sit in the back of my mind. They’re always with me, but they don’t provide a lot of specifics. But that’s part of the beauty of them as well. They’re always there, and they have no limits.

We often talk about ways to glorify God and worship Him outside of church services. TheResurgence.com recently posted audio in their “Continuous Worship” series with the topic “Is ‘worship’ the only word for worship?” It’s something that I’ve struggled with. We’ve put our worship of God into the church box, and have excluded it from the rest of our lives for so long, that when we realize we need to set it free, we don’t know how. (continue reading…)

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