It’s time for round two in my joint venture with Mike Todd. The question: “Heaven and Hell. What are they and who goes there?” A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer.I don’t like to be descriptive about heaven beyond what the Bible says. It mentions a throne room and throne, and multitudes surrounding…that’s all I can think of right now. But all that isn’t really important to me. What’s important to me is this: Heaven is the unmitigated presence of God, from whom all blessings flow. I don’t care if the sky is clear, the weather balmy, and streets paved with gold, because God is there and that’s all that matters.

Conversely, Hell is the unbroken absence of God. No life, no joy, no hope, no peace…just pain. There may be fires and there may be physical torment, but that’s superfluous in comparison to the spiritual torment of being totally separated from God. (continue reading…)

On Sunday morning Wade turned over a communion table. Fortunately (or unfortunately, from my perspective) it wasn’t a real one, just a plant on the stage. Can you call it a stage if it’s at the front of the worship area? Anyway, it was pretty powerful stuff.

He was talking about Jesus’ final week, which we’ll be doing at Garnett until Easter. He talked about the clearing of the temple, and Jesus’ unkind words for the Pharisees. All of that was pretty standard. Then he asked what Jesus would think of our lifestyles, of our spiritual lives, of our church life. Still standard. Then he asked what we would do if he weren’t happy. “What would we do if Jesus came in and started throwing over communion tables?!”

The congregation was arrested…I was at least. I kind of froze - first trying to figure out if there was really any communion on the table - then truly thinking about the question. What would Jesus think of all the junk we do on Sunday morning as though it’s divine law? About the expectations we heap on newcomers, expecting them to fit into the social mold of our congregations? About the amount of money churches (like ours, in its history) have spent on enormous buildings, rather than on service or missions? I think it’s pretty obvious that the train’s off the tracks, but in how many places and how do we get it back on? (continue reading…)

I recently met Mike Todd, sole proprietor of Waving or Drowning, in the comments to my post Mark Driscoll and the Progressive Double Standard. We had a hearty disagreement, but Mike seemed to be interested in actually talking to me, rather than just tell me my modern theology is worthless in the postmodern world, then scurry off into the night. We went back and forth a couple of times, and I thought that it might be worth it for us to talk more, and on more subject. So, today we are launching our semi-official semi-dialogue.

It’s semi-official because we want to see if it will work before we go full-bore. It’s a semi-dialogue because at first it won’t be a “dialogue” at all. We’re going to start with dual monologues; we’ll each answer the question, and the other will offer no response. This will be building a basis for our conversation so that we can understand each other. Then we’ll get to the back-and-forth.

The monologue questions will be in the vein of our prompt today; they are simply setting the table for the deep discourse that will happen later. I hope you enjoy this discussion and return for our future interactions. (continue reading…)

The Christmas war has begun anew. It’s not quite like it has been in recent years for me, mainly because I haven’t been paying very much attention. But I was listening to O’Reilly for a few minutes today and it all came screaming back to me. Some days I can’t get enough of the ridiculous ranting from people who think that it’s important whether or not people say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Other days I don’t want to hear it at all.

Chris has some good thoughts over at Rend The Heavens:

This fight to keep “Merry Christmas” alive is going to be fought year after year and probably will eventually end with “holiday” being the victor. HOWEVER, if we focused our efforts on expanding the Kingdom of God, not simply a holiday… not a culture… not the Kingdom of America… then maybe, we’d see the result that we need: Everyone bowing their knee to Jesus and acknowledging them as Savior and LORD.

I’m with him totally. For all intents and purposes, Christmas is a secular holiday. The celebration of Jesus birth is completely separated from the trees and the presents and the “peace on earth and good will towards men” business. For many Jesus is just another ornament on the tree. The way we celebrate (and the things we get riled up about) show that our priorities are way out of whack.

Related: Anti-Christmas Christians, Much Ado About Christmas

After reading Is the D.Min a “fluff degree? at Pomomusings, I started to rethink my grad school choices a little. I want to have my options open for a Th.D, if I decide to go that route, but I don’t want to “waste” my time (I use quotes because study is never wasted time) on a degree that won’t make me a better minister.

My friend Jason is finishing his M.Div and I know he’s been challenged and has had to work hard on his theological understanding. But he says that his classmates aren’t necessarily following suit. And the school isn’t encouraging them to. Neither of us can understand why.

The majority of the study is on pastoral care issues, church growth, and program trends. But praxis changes. That whole portion of study could be useless in two or three years. But theology is timeless.

Sure, our understandings change from time to time, and we have to be able to articulate and apply our theology in rapidly changing contexts. But Christ doesn’t change. God doesn’t change. Our church leaders need to be grounded in the constant, unchanging things…houses built on the rock. (continue reading…)

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