The following is my philosophy of ministry paper, that I wrote last fall in my History and Philosophy of Christian Education. I posted parts of it previously here on the blog, but this is the full deal. I had hoped to expand and change some parts, which may eventually happen, but for now, I think the full thing is worth posting, only slightly modified.It follows the
Frankena model, which is what the Box A, B, C, and D mean. I took out Box E because it no longer describes the ministry context I am actually in.
What is the ultimate purpose of minsitry?
(Box A)
Our understanding of reality begins in the life of the Trinity. God exists in one substance and three persons. There is one God, who exists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[1] To understand the nature and purpose of all that exists, we must see everything as an overflow of the life of God in the Trinity.
The life of God within the Trinity is one of perfect glory. It is a life of love, with perfect affection of each member to the other two, without malice or apathy, each one always supremely interested in the other. Each member of the Trinity seeks the joy of the other persons of the Trinity, and each member delights in the other members completely. It is a life of shared joy and knowledge. Complete understanding exists between each person of the Godhead, and perfect fellowship characterizes their interaction. All actions of the Trinity are united amongst all three persons, and all seek the same end. It is the perfect community. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, “God hath all life, glory, blessedness, in and of himself.”[2]
Most importantly, each member of the Trinity is glorifying the other two. Each of the members of the Trinity, in seeing the beauty of God in the other two, overflow with joy. The Son and the Spirit delight in the Father. The Spirit and the Father delight in the Son. The Son and the Father honor the Spirit. In a sense, the life of God is the ultimate worship service. Each person of the Trinity praises the perfections of the others, for all recognize the supreme worth of each other. God is supremely happy in all that he sees in himself. As Wayne Grudem puts it, “God delights fully in himself and in all that reflects his character…God is perfectly happy” and “has the fullness of joy in himself.”[3] The life of God is one of infinite happiness. [4]
Out of this life overflow the actions of God outside himself. Not out of deficiency, but out of overflowing sufficiency, God creates the world and acts within it. All of creation is an expression of the joy and glory of the three persons of God from all eternity. God’s desire is to share with other beings the delight that he has in himself, so he creates beings which can participate in the life of God. God has created humans and angels as agents of praise, and placed them in contexts where they can experience the glory of God. In particular, God has placed humans in a world that puts on display his character in various ways, humans themselves as the pinnacle of this display, so that humans will perceive and delight in God’s character. Another way of saying this, is that in creation God is on a mission to form a community of worshipers who will share in his own delight in his glory.
Therefore, the ultimate purpose of reality is to participate in this overflow of the divine life, and to join God in his delight in himself. In other words, “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.”[5] We exist for the display and enjoyment of the glory of God. Like the members of the Trinity, we are to find complete delight in the character and beauty of God. Likewise, our joy is to overflow so that we desire to see more creatures display and enjoy the character of God. To make God famous, to increase the praise he receives, to draw attention to how incredible he is, is the ultimate goal of all existence, and therefore of ministry.
What is the nature of the reality in which the ministry is happening?
(Box B)
The Character of God
Because all reality has its origin in God, in order to understand the nature of reality, we must understand God.
God is a revealing God. In order for his character to delighted in, it must be perceived by his creatures. There is no way for God to be known unless he chooses to make himself known.[6] How does God reveal himself? Most generally, his character is revealed in creation. God has made the natural world to reflect his glory.[7] At the pinnacle of creation are human beings which God created in his image.[8] Through both the natural world and humanity, God has demonstrated his attributes in general. When understood rightly, creation reveals the glory of God. However, for God’s purposes, general revelation is insufficient. For humans to truly know and enjoy God, they must have clear and special revelation. God does this through the Scriptures, which are the Word of God.[9] As a wholly reliable, error-free revelation, they enable humans to know what God is like. God’s ultimate revelation of his character and glory through the Incarnation.[10] In Jesus Christ, God came to dwell among us and to show us what he is like. As Jesus put it, “Whoever sees me sees him who sent me.”[11] All of these modes of revelation are intended to put on display the character of God.
God is a sovereign God. Because God values his glory above all, God has made a plan to insure that his desired end comes about in full. God is in control, ordaining and working all things for his ends.[12] God’s mission is not done is a haphazard way. There is one plan (without a Plan B) which has been put into place from the very beginning. For this reason, we can be confident in God’s promises to bring about our participation in the joy and community of the Trinity.
God is a just God. Because God prizes his glory above all things, he will not tolerate any slander or disrespect of his name. As a result, all who defame his glory through sin are condemned to consequences which fit with the severity of their transgression. Because God’s glory is infinitely worthy, the punishment for defaming it is infinite (i.e. hell).
God is a gracious God. Fortunately for those defame his name, the pinnacle of God’s glory is shown when he gives something that is not deserved.[13] God could rightly punish those who defame his glory, but he desires to show his glory all the more by blessing those who do not deserve to be blessed. How better to show that God is the source of all good things than to give good things to those who clearly do not deserve them? As it says in Ephesians, we have been saved so that we might be “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved”[14] and so that “no one can boast.”[15]
The Nature of Humans
Although the study of the nature of human beings could consume a lifetime, I want to focus on three crucial aspects of humans that factor into how we do ministry.
Humans are culture creating.[16] Unlike most animals, we are not merely driven by biological needs and instincts. Through social interaction, human beings produce customs, rituals, codes of conduct, and modes of interaction. We organize into groups. We produce technology, art, and philosophy. The mandate to create culture was given to humans in Genesis 1:26-28, where God gives human beings dominion over all other living creatures, blesses procreation and the raising of children, commands the subduing of the earth. Ideally, humans are to create and participate in a culture that prizes God’s glory above all.
Humans are finite. This is a significant, but perhaps overlooked, aspect of human nature. Human beings are localized creatures. This means that each individual, and even each community, exists in only one place. All people are spatially, temporally, and culturally located in a specific place. The Bible acknowledges that this localization is determined by God for his own purposes. God has determined the times set for us and the exact places we live.[17] This fact has two important implications. First, isolated humans are only able to manifest incomplete portraits of God’s character. The full expression of God’s glory that God seeks from humans is not possible in isolation, both as individuals and as communities. No one human culture can complete express the fullness of God. Second, the localized nature of humans means that each human community can only influence the cultures which they are immediately connected to. I cannot impact Chinese culture because I am a white man located in the largely white suburbs of Chicago without interact with Chinese culture. I can only impact my local culture.
Humans are sinful. Sin is the pursuit of joy in something other than God’s glory. It is characterized in Jeremiah 2:12-13, which says:
Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Sin is when we seek to be satisfied, not in the living water flowing from the heart of God, but in the putrid, stagnant, and insufficient sources of pleasure that fill the world.[18] By delighting inordinately in something other than God, we sin and defame the glory of God’s sufficiency. By abandoning the glory of God as our source of delight, there are two results. The first consequence is that we incur the wrath of God for defaming his glory.[19] Second, it makes us less than human by distorting the purpose for which we exist. Our world is warped, and all the ideal relationships and functions of our life are bent and marred.
Adam and Eve, our first parents, sinned, and humans have lived a warped life under wrath ever since. Through our union with Adam, we have joined him in his sin.[20] Our current state is one of inherited sinfulness and guilt. All who have been born after Adam have been born in a state of total depravity. We are unable to seek good as it should be.[21] All our actions are tainted with sin. Without exception, human beings are born on a collision course with a failed life and a doomed eternity.[22]
Salvation
“Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ our Lord!”[23] Because of God’s desire to show the glory as the all-sufficient source of every good, God has provided a way from humans to escape his wrath and to be restored to the purpose for which they were created. This was accomplished in Jesus Christ.
Through Jesus Christ alone, atonement for sin is accomplished. In the incarnation, the Second person of the Trinity united himself with humanity by taking on a human nature.[24] As the head of the new humanity, Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience and submission to the purposes of God, truly living the human life as it was meant to be lived.[25] Although his life had earned no wrath from God, Jesus stood in solidarity with his people and bore the wrath of God which they deserved.[26] In doing so, God’s wrath against them was satisfied.[27] When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, he made the sacrifice for sin once and for all, for all those who trust him.[28]
However, only those who trust in Jesus are saved. Unfortunately, because human beings are thoroughly bent on pursuing their own pleasure, they will not turn to Christ in faith. For someone to trust to God is a miracle worked by the Spirit at the command of the Father. As Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”[29] Likewise, because God is sovereign, this is a work that God never fails to accomplish. Jesus also says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”[30] Without the work of God, no one comes to faith in Jesus. This is so that “it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”[31] In this way, God’s grace is on display most fully. God gets all the credit, and no human being can boast that he earned his salvation.[32]
It is important to see that salvation includes not only justification, but also the transformation of all life. By Jesus’ death, our relationships are healed, and we are reconciled with our fellow humans.[33] Because of God’s gift, we will experience the glorification of our bodies and take part in the new heavens and new earth. In the present, our character is being transformed by the work of the Spirit. Through the Spirit we are being shaped to be like Jesus, the true human.[34] Likewise, through the Spirit, we have restored communion with God and the ability to share in the delight of the glory of the Trinity as we were designed to do. Through the Spirit, all believers have access to God as priests, requiring no mediators other than Jesus.[35]
Our salvation is not isolated or individualistic. God has placed us in a society of redeemed humans, the Church. Because we express God’s glory only partially as individuals, he has placed us together so we can express it more completely. We are to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.”[36] The Church joins with God in his mission of displaying the glory of God. We exist to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”[37] The Church is God’s missional community, his agents of reconciliation who are seeking people who worship in spirit and truth[38] and making disciples of all nations.[39]
Epistemology
Human beings perceive and understand reality by use of both their reason and affections, their head and heart, their rationality and emotions.[40] In the past, Christian theology has sometimes erred by emphasizing the rational aspect of understanding over the emotional. At other times, (including much of popular culture today), the emotional aspect of understanding has been overdone. True understanding comes when one grasps properly with the mind and responds properly with the heart.
In considering how we gain understanding, there are at least three issues that must be taken into account. First, humans are relational creatures that are inextricably situated in a context. The society and culture we are in, our families, and our prior assumptions all impact our reception of knowledge and our response to it. We understand things in the constructs we have in place at the time of learning, and our constructs change only gradually. Second, humans are experiential creatures. We do not exist merely as minds and emotions. You cannot impact our understanding directly, but must do so through means of our senses. We hear, smell, see, feel, and taste. We learn through encounter and interaction. Third, and most importantly, we are sinful creatures. Sin has affected our capacity to understand. We are no longer capable of true understanding that is untainted. Both our mind and our emotions have been tainted, and neither is wholly reliable.
Current Culture
Because we are contextualized, culture-creating creatures, we must have an understanding of current culture in which ministry will take place. Like all the other categories discussed above, this would take books and books to describe. However, several important realities must be considered for ministry.
First, our society is post-Christian.[41] Although most of the Western world was predominantly influenced by Christianity for the past fifteen hundred years, people no longer see their world through the general grid of theism and Judeo-Christian morality. Categories that were understood by past generations (including words like sin, salvation, grace, and other important Christian words) are no longer meaningful to people in our culture. The story that people use to interpret the world is not one of fall and redemption any more.
Second, we live in a transitional age between modernism and postmodernism.[42] Leaving the rationalistic mindset of the Enlightenment and the idealistic hope of scientific progress, our society has embraced a pluralistic pessimism. Rejecting objective metanarratives, postmodern society teems with relativism and tribalism.
Third, partly because of, or at least in accord with, postmodernism, our society has embraced extreme egalitarianism. Western society place hide value on equality. From equality between races and genders to equality of religions and lifestyles, our society refuses to place too strong of distinctions or value judgments on anything for fear of destroying equality.
Fourth, and related to this, is a deep seated bent towards individualism.[43] We value the freedom of the individual to an extreme level. From a young age, Americans are told that what other people think or do has no bearing on them. They are their own person, free to break tradition and do their own thing.
Fifth, our culture is bloated with consumerism. Entertainment and consumption are the hallmarks of our wealthy American society. From food, to media, to acquiring property, our culture screams at us to take an excessive amount of anything for ourselves.
Finally, our culture is shaped by globalism and multiculturalism. Unlike any time in all of history, the average person has a good knowledge of the fact that the world is filled with people who are mostly different from them. Information about other parts of the world is instant, and appreciative encounters with other cultures is an expected part of a full life. This is fed by the internet and media, and likewise feeds the postmodern mood of pluralism.
It is in this historically unique culture in which we must do ministry today, and we are all affected by it, whether we like it or not.
What qualities ought to be culivated in people as a result of your ministry?
(Box C)
The fundamental medium through which humans glorify God is culture. Our purpose is to create a culture that displays and delights in the character of God. [44] The fact that humans glorify God through culture is very important to understand. There are many who understand that humans were created for God’s glory, but often this is pictured in vague, immaterial terms. To glorify God is often removed from the context of life in a way that makes it something you can only do in a church service or merely a token acknowledgement of credit being given to God.[45] Glorifying God should be fleshed out expressions of culture. Patterns of life, relationships, artistic expression, work, sex, politics, and economics are all a part of the culture that God seeks to be glorified in. They are not merely incidentals, but the very place where God’s character is displayed and delighted in. To seek the glory of God is not to endure the things of this life for the sake of getting to the eternal worship service in the sky. We are created glorify God in culture.
I would propose that the goal of ministry is to cultivate a certain type of culture that glorifies God. Before I describe the trains of such I culture, I want to make three clarifications about the form this culture must take.[46]
First of all, it must be a public culture. This means living out in the open, where the world can see. Our culture must not be ghettoized in safe little bubbles. It must actively involved in the world at large. This is both the nature of cultures, but also a result of the mission orientation of the culture we seek to create. Because we seek to display God’s character to the world, we cannot withdraw from the world.
Second, it must be a counter-culture, not a subculture. By this distinction, I want to prevent a form of Christian culture that merely mimics the dominant culture that surrounds it. Contemporary forms of Christian culture tend to be parasitic, sucking off the creativity of the broader pop culture and expressing it with nicer, safer, more pleasant content. Instead of dropping Christian content into an existing culture, I recommend active creativity on the part of Christians. We must still interact, react to, and learn from the broader culture, but we must not parrot it.
Third, our culture must be a local culture. This goes back to the fact that human beings are finite and localized creatures. Because we can only interact with those we are in contact with, each local fellowship of believers must focus on the community around them. This does not exclude foreign and cross-cultural missions, but instead requires that the goal of foreign missions be to establish local fellowships that can minister to and reach their community.[47] This means that each expression of Christian culture will be shaped by local realities.
With that being said, what does this God-glorifying culture look like? How do people in it act? What are the excellencies that we ought to see in people that make up the culture? What are the values of such a culture?
To begin with, people must have right-standing before God. The guilt of sin must be overcome before a God-glorifying culture can be created. Our first goal in ministry, then, is to seek people’s justification. In the words of Spurgeon, “Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.”[48] This means that we must seek to cultivate trust in the grace of God in all those that we minister to. The abandonment of self-reliance and turning to Christ for salvation is the fundamental trait of those in a God-glorifying culture. When we are completely reliant on the grace of God, we put on display the glory of his all-sufficiency and sheer kindness. Once people are justified, they can begin participating in a culture that displays and delights in the character of God.
A God-glorifying culture is characterized by theological living. If we would share in the delight of God in his glory, we must understand his glory. We must perceive his attributes in order to delight in them. This means deep thinking, wrestling with ideas, abandonment of simplistic answers, and willingness to exert mental energy. Because this is a culture of theological living, all members of the culture ought to take part in theology, not an elite few. This does not mean that all must be academic theologians, but all must be practical theologians. If a Christian is a lawyer, they must engage in deep thinking about how the nature of God impacts law. If a Christian is a cook, they must think hard about how theology impacts the culinary arts.[49] The same goes for construction workers, ranchers, politicians, farmers, textile manufactures, IRS agents, soldiers, astronomers, musicians and every kind of person who participates in the God-glorifying culture.[50]
We must cultivate a culture marked by worshipful living. Worship is the act of enjoying the glory of God. Having perceived the display of God’s character, God’s people respond to God’s character just like the members of the Trinity do, with delight. We join in God’s delight in God. This means wonder, awe, amazement, and passion. It is about being consumed with emotion over the beauty of God.
Members of a God-glorifying culture would be characterized by missional living.[51] Just like God, the Church’s joy will overflow into active work to extend this joy to others. We must join in the mission of God to pursue worshipers, make disciples, and transform both people and societies. This culture must be a growing, spreading culture, not a stagnant one. In a sense, Christians must view all life as a mission trip. All members of the Christian community must be active in the mission of God.
Reflecting the life of the Trinity, a God-glorifying culture is characterized by communal living.[52] By this, I do not mean living in a commune (although that is not excluded, I suppose). However, a God-glorifying culture is one that is shared. The harmony of people with each other is a reflection of the character of God. [53] This goes beyond gathering once a week to sing to God and hear a lecture from the Bible. This means actually sharing life. Just like in the book of Acts, as the Church we must share the ins and outs of every day life, from our spiritual life to our physical needs to our work. Our life is one done together.
Because we are truly seeking to create a culture, we must be characterized by creative living.[54] God is a creator, expressing in an infinite variety of ways the many facets of his glory. He calls us to share in his delight and expression of his glory, should we not also be creative? The people of God should be known as poets, painters, writers, dancers, musicians, and actors. The glory of God is so vast that we should never run out of aspects of his character to express or ways to express them in a new way. Drab, dull, and boring should not be traits of Christian culture.
Because we seek to create a culture that makes God’s glory the supreme value, we will be characterized by sacrificial living.[55] Like our head, Jesus, as a culture, we must prize the fame of God above all lesser goods. To see God praised, we will be willing (and bold) to give up comfort, safety, and even our lives. When your joy is in the unchanging character of God, nothing can stop you, not even suffering or persecution.
Reflecting the character of God, we must create a culture that is characterized by just living. Social justice and compassion should be championed by Christians. Love for the underprivileged and the powerless flow from the heart of God, and it ought to characterized those who would display God’s character to the world. This means acts of mercy and compassion towards those in need, but it also means the formation of just structures of society.[56] The likelihood is that this will upset the status quo of many existing societies and Christian fellowships.
What methods should we use to bring about those qualities?
(Box D)
The first, last, and most important method in ministry is prayer. Because salvation is all of God, because humans are totally sinful, because spiritual forces challenge our ministry, and because ministers themselves are plagued with weaknesses we need God. We must plead for souls. We must throw ourselves on his grace. We must turn to him in trust. We must pray. If you ministry can be explained by anything other than the supernatural, something is wrong.
A natural place to begin thinking about ministry methods is to ask: who does the ministry? Because all members of the Church have access to God, all members of the Christian community ought to participate in ministry.[57] We seek to cultivate a shared lifestyle, and sharing ministry is part of that. All members of the body are involved in the mission of God, so all members contribute. There are specific members of the community, however, that should be held responsible to see that ministry is happening. The first are heads of households.[58] Another way of saying this is saying that every Dad is a Pastor to his family. Like the Puritans, I believe that each family should be seen as a primary locus of spiritual growth. Extending on that idea, I believe that Fathers should be coordinating their family as a missional unit. As a community on a mission, we already have built in structure for local and global ourtreach. Second, the elders are the spiritual leaders of the local community. A plurality of leaders that are a part of the community, as opposed to a hired staff with a head pastor, who actually facilitate the ministry is crucial. The elders, based on their gifts[59], ought to share ministry responsibilities amongst them. Rotating who speaks and who leads worship gatherings, for example, may be a good idea.
The process of forming disciples must include spiritual disciplines.[60] Both corporately and privately, the disciplines should be a common means to forming the members of a local community. Prayer, fasting, silence, solitude, pilgrimages, giving, and celebration should be regular parts of the life of the Church. Because people are formed by what they do and experience, both the character of individuals and the culture of a community can be shaped by the disciplines. They are an ancient form of experiential learning that we ought to claim today.
To cultivate theological living, we must engage in teaching and preaching.[61] People must understand what God is like and what he is doing in order to reflect his glory. The sermon is the main way the content of the faith is imparted to the community. However, we must keep in mind the realities that humans are experiential and holistic beings. We cannot preach with words alone. We are free to be creative in how we teach and express. Props, interaction from the congregation, discussion, movement, artistic representation, and other modes of communication and learning must be employed. A talking head at the front of a sanctuary is not the picture we need to have. A dancing, moving, laughing, questioning whirlwind is more like it. This does not mean more shallow or less Biblical teaching, in fact it requires as much or more processing of the truth about God to express it in more ways than the verbal. Preaching has gotten into a box sometimes. Preaching needs to be unleashed.
Worship services are central in forming a culture that displays and delights in the glory of God. Corporate activity shapes people, their identity, their shared memories, their values. This is where people encounter and express in the most direct ways, the character of God. If people are to live worshipfully and theologically, they will learn to do it at gatherings of the people of God to worship. Because we seek to express the character of God, God’s revelation must be the center of our worship service. Christ and the Scriptures should be our focus in every worship service. Because we learn through senses and experience and we want to be a creative culture, we must allow our worship to be creative.[62] Music, art, movement, corporate prayer, discussion, sensory experiences, visuals, and even food ought to be a part of our worship. Of course, God himself has given us the best experiential expressions of his character in the sacraments. We ought to share Communion regularly,[63] and baptisms ought to be in the regular worship service.[64]
Elders and church leaders ought to be cultural influencers of their local fellowship, and the one of the best ways they can do this is through the creative use of traditions. Whether you take up a tradition of the ancient church, your denomination, or develop new ones for your own community, traditions are crucial to culture formation. They are the markers that remind people what their lives are about. As traditions are repeated, people are shaped.
To encourage missional living, we need to coordinate local service and outreach.[65] People need to know that being the Church isn’t something you do inside a church building. It is something you do in the world. Working among the local poor, coordinating with local organizations, working alongside your town government, all of these are aspects of being a missionally involved local culture. Our outreach must be outside of the church, not an event where we expect people to come into our church building to hear the Gospel. We must be publicly and locally involved in our community. That is how we will see the God-glorifying culture spread and people come to faith in Christ. This is something that all regular members of a local church should be expected to be a part of. Not only will this be an outlet fro missional living, but it also encourages community in powerful ways when people serve together.
Small groups are a great way to encourage all sorts of our educational goals.[66] They can be used to facilitate communal living. They can be organizing units for missional activity. They often result in people coming to Christ, because they feel comfortable in a small group, but not a worship service. This is where spiritual disciplines can happen, as well as theological processing. If we want people to think theologically about their lifestyle, this is where they can wrestle with their ideas of how that can be done.
One of the hallmark of the early church that we need to embrace wholeheartedly is shared meals.[67] You want to talk about a powerful cultural force? Food is huge. Who you eat with, how the food is served and prepared, where you eat it, all this shapes culture in more ways than we notice. Communal living is most quickly facilitated through meals. We should eat at worship services, have feasts, and host potlucks. I would love to have a church where it was natural for people to simply prepare and bring food just because that is what you do at church, eat.[68]
Finally, if we are a culture that celebrates the glory of God, enjoying it, not mere acknowledging it, we need have lots of parties. Why do people think Christian culture is boring? They shouldn’t. We should be known for feasts and festivals, just like the Jews.[69] I am talking about music, food, dancing, laughter, and games. We are the community of the redeemed people of God, those who are invited to take part in the joy of the Trinity, and people think we’re dull! I think it’s a sin if we perpetuate that error. Let my people party!
Bibliography
Baxter, Richard. The Reformed Pastor. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. New York: Harper & Row, 1954.
Clapp, Rodney. A Peculiar People. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1996.
Dillenberger, John, ed. Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1961.
Driscoll, Mark. Radical Reformission. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.
____. Mars Hill Church Website. http://www.marshillchurch.org. Internet; Accessed 16
December 2004.
Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978.
Grenz, Stanley. A Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.
Guder, Darrell L., ed. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1998.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.ste
Kimball, Dan. The Emerging Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.
Kimball, Dan. Emerging Worship. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.
Ortberg, John. The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1997.
Piper, John. Desiring God. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah 1996.
____. The Pleasures of God. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah 2000.
____. The Supremacy of God in Preaching. Grand Rapids: Baker 1990.
____. God’s Passion for His Glory. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998.
Rusaw, Rick and Eric Swanson. The Externally Focused Church. Loveland, CO: Group,
2004.
Smith, John E., Stout, Harry S., and Minkema, Kenneth. A Jonathan Edwards Reader.
New Haven: Yale 1995.
Spurgeon, Charles H. The Soul Winner. Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus,
1998.
Wesley, John. The Works of John Wesley. Grand Rapids: Baker 1978.
“The Westminster Larger Catechism,” http://www.reformed.org/documents/larger1.html;
Internet; accessed 15 December 2004.
[1] See Wayne Grudem, “God in Three Persons” and “The Athanasian Creed,”
Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 226-261, 1170-1.
[2] Ibid., “Westminster Confession of Faith,”1180.
[4] For an in depth discussion of this, see John Piper,
The Pleasures of God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000). A more challenging treatment of this same topic is Jonathan Edward’s
The End for Which God Created the World. An excellent annotated version of this is available in John Piper,
God’s Passion for His Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998). Piper’s footnotes make Edward’s work much more readable.
[6] Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22, Isaiah 55:8-9
[7] Psalm 19:1-3, 97:6, Romans 1:20
[9] II Timothy 3:15-17, John 5:19
[10] John 1:14, Colossians 1:9, Hebrews 1:1-2
[12] Romans 8:28, Ephesians 1:11
[16] See Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, S. Steve Kang, and Gary A. Parrett,
A Many Colored Kingdom (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2004), 52.
[18] See John Piper,
Desiring God (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah 1996). Also, C. S. Lewis,
Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 2001).
[22] Romans 3:9, Psalm 51:5
[35] Romans 8:26-27, Hebrews 4:14-16
[40] I follow the lead of many great theologians in the past in acknowledging the importance of both of these aspects of human understanding. Specifically Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards. See Jonathan Edwards, “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections
” available in
A Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven: Yale 1995),137-171.
[41] See Rodney Clapp,
A Peculiar People (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity 1996).
[42] For an excellent treatment of postmodernism, see Stanley Grenz.
A Primer on Postmodernism.(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1996)
[43] This is pervasively true, although some strains of postmodernism are moving people toward a more tribal and communal view of the world.
[44] For more on the idea of the Church as a culture see Rodney Clapp,
A Peculiar People (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity 1996). Also see Mark Driscoll,
Radical Reformission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2004).
[45] The first results in extreme piety, and a withdrawal from the world. Such Christians often have no impact on the world around them. A common example of this is the “youth-group-is-my-life kid.” A more extreme example of this is the medieval monastics who withdrew from society. The other is often merely an anemic statement given so that people can get on with the business of living, having, of course, given token credit to God. Such Christians often look practically no different from non-Christians in how they operate everywhere outside of personal devotions and church services. Faith is a matter of private practice and opinion, not public action. An extreme picture of this is the typical professional athlete that thanks Jesus after winning a game.
[46] For more on the interaction between the Church and mainstream culture see Mark Driscoll
Radical Reformission.[47] See Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson,
The Externally Focused Church. (Loveland, CO: Group 2004).
[48] Charles Spurgeon,
Soul Winner (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus 1998), 5.
[49] Far fetched? Over stating it? 1 Cor. 10:31 does say, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Again, this does not mean the token acknowledgement of credit being given God while we get on with doing the same old thing. It requires wrestling with the implications of the character of God with every aspect of life.
[50] There are (with a little poetic license) examples of all of believers in God who had all these jobs in the Bible.
[51] See Darrell L. Guder, ed.
Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns 1998). Also see Dan Kimball,
The Emerging Church. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2003).
[52] For more on community see Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Life Together (New York: Harper & Row 1954).
[54] See Dan Kimball,
Emerging Church, 143-154.
[55] See John Piper “Suffering: The Sacrifice of Christian Hedonism” in
Desiring God, 212-238. This chapter changed my life.
[56] Examples of both of these can be seen in the book of Acts, where it is said that the Christians provided for people as need arose, but they also participated in economic restructuring so that some communities held their goods in common. See both Acts 2:45 and Acts 4:32.
[57] See Martin Luther, John Dillenberger, ed. “An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom.” Available in
Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1961), 407-414.
[59] Which should included the ability to teach. I Timothy 3:2
[60] See John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1997). See also Richard J. Foster
, Celebration of Discipline. (San Francisco: Harper & Row 1978). See also Dan Kimball, The
Emerging Church, 213-225.
[61] See Dan Kimball,
The Emerging Church, 171-196. See also John Piper,
The Supremacy of God in Preaching. (Grand Rapids: Baker 1990).
[62] See Dan Kimball,
Emerging Worship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2004).
[63] I prefer every week, myself.
[64] Many churches do baptisms in a separate, less well attended service at another time in the week. I think this is a mistake, seeing as baptism is a rite of entry into a community, and the community is not always there to see it.
[65] See Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson,
The Externally Focused Church.[66] See John Wesley, “A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists” in
The Works of John Wesley, 3
rd Ed., Vol. VIII. (Grand Rapids: Baker 1978), 249-268.
[68] Think of how food impacts the dynamic of a school classroom. When someone brings food, it can bring a whole group together and open people up in remarkable ways. And when it is students who bring the food, it makes them feel a connection to that class in a positive way.
[69] God had assigned at least three mandatory feasts every year for the people of Israel. One of the tithes was exclusively given for a week long celebration in Jerusalem. See the book of Leviticus.
