How to Make a God

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. 

A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving 'face' and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry.  When your meaning in life is to fix someone else's life, we may call it 'co-dependency' but it is really idolatry.  An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, 'If I have that, then I'll feel my life has meaning, then I'll know I have value, then I'll feel significant and secure.' There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

 

This week I bought--and finished--Tim Keller's new book, Counterfeit Gods. Excellent challenge to center life on the living God--and an exposition of what happens when we center life on anything else. 

"This One’s for You Jesus, Glory to the One Who Died and Rose From the Grave"

From Jonathan Dodson's review of U2's latest tour:

If you listen closely, there’s an unmistakable refrain in Bono’s lyrics, a refrain of worship that points to God, even to Christ. During the 360 Degree Tour, just before he sang ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,” Bono sang “Amazing Grace,” a grace that saves “wretches like me.” Apparently Bono isn’t going PC on that lyric. Now, this grace could be attributed to a lot of things, but Bono sticks with the author of Grace—Jesus. After Amazing Grace, he introduced Where the Streets Have No Name,” with this statement:

“This one’s for you Jesus, glory to the one who died and rose from the grave.”

Whether we agree or not, like it or not, the worship emanating from Bono’s vocal chords, from his soul, is praise to his Magnificent Creator and Redeemer. To Jesus.

Remembering Paul Meyer

Paul Meyer died on Monday at 81 after a battle with cancer.

I met Paul and Jane while serving in the Cayman Islands. He was very supportive of the church I led, and surprised Diane and me with generous expressions of appreciation from time to time. My boys will remember working out with me in Paul and Jane's gym, climbing in their sea grape trees before a seaside baptism at their home, and staying in his Colorado home for skiing.

Our ministry was only a small part of his philanthropy, though. As the editorial in the Waco Tribune Herald reminds us, the Paul & Jane Meyer Family Foundation "has given away $65 million since 1984. And no more than 15 percent of that money has gone to groups outside of Waco. In fact, each month, the Meyers donated about $200,000 to McLennan County causes."

Paul was also a writer, and some of his most influential material was about challenging others to find the joy that he had found in generosity.

Diane and I plan to be at the funeral this Friday and express our condolences to Jane.

(photo from Waco Tribune Herald, which reported Paul's passing here)

Winning Ways: A 193-Year-Old Apology

“Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will openly be taught and practiced [sic], the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.”

So said an editorial in the Connecticut newspaper, the “Courant.” The year was 1800 and the editor feared the worst for America if Thomas Jefferson was elected President.

Nearly 200 years later, in 1993, the paper marked the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth with an apology. Now called the Hartford Courant, the newspaper editorial remarked, “It's never too late to admit a mistake.”

Indeed.

This Sunday we're going to take the Eighth Step to Victory in our morning series through the Twelve Steps used by many recovery groups. In the Eighth Step, we make a list of those we have harmed with a willingness to make amends to them all.

Two hundred years is probably too long to wait before taking the Eighth Step. So, see you and your Bible this Sunday at 10 a.m.!

Nine Point Plan: In last week’s study of Step Seven, I promised to give you a 9-point plan for putting the Step into practice. (You can listen to the sermon online.) Here is the 9-point plan, adapted from a book called The Path to Serenity. (You can find more detail about the plan here.)

Continue to name your basic character defects.

Hand the defects back over to God's care.

Specify very carefully what needs to be changed for just this one day.

Ask God to touch the parts of you that need to be changed.

Act your way into a new way of thinking and feeling.

Be willing to bear discomfort.

Think secure thoughts.

Develop new habits with repetition.

At the end of the day, stop and thank God for any and all of the smallest changes.

Craft Show: I hope you’ll come out for our “Labor of Love” Craft Show Friday and Saturday. People bring their entire office out for the enchiladas on Fridays (but come early!). If you haven’t had the famous “Margaret’s Chocolate Cake,” trust me, it’s time you tried it.

Pumpkin Party: Bring your kids or grandkids to this fun and safe indoor event!

Daylight Savings Time Ends: “Fall Back” an hour before you go to bed this Saturday night. Get an extra hour of sleep Sunday morning and come physically refreshed to be spiritually refreshed!

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday October 27

Gary Haugan’s book, Just Courage, is a free audio download for the rest of this month. Download here.


Two percent of the population are compulsive hoarders.


Men are seven times more likely than women to leave a seriously ill partner.


This guys says that the Florida rock band, Creed, deserves a second listen and belated respect.


John Mark Reynolds says its okay to just let entertainment be no deeper than, well, entertainment.


The more housework you do, the more often you are likely to have sex with your spouse.


Snarky, snarky, snarky: “The secret to [Rick] Warren's success is that he found people responsible for their own success in life and convinced them that it was all due to God.” (from a Slate article reviewing a book on Rick Warren’s life.)


You should read Bart Barber’s respectful response to James Denison, the official theologian of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Denison wrote an attack upon inerrancy entitled, ‘The Errancy of Inerrancy.’ Barber replies. (HT: Russell Moore)


Good to see Hillcrest drummer and Baylor freshman, Scott Smith, serving at Baylor chapel in this clip.


Studies show that “people remember things better, longer, if they are given very challenging tests on the material, tests at which they are bound to fail” (Scientific American)


David Powilson gives guidance on breaking pornography addiction: Part 1; Part 2.

Fatal Accident on the Way to Church

Diane and I passed the aftermath of this wreck on our way to church service yesterday. So sad. Another fatality from a driver under the influence. Go to article in the Statesman.

A Nine Point Plan for Recovery

At Hillcrest we're finding biblical guidance for working the 12 Steps of recovery groups.  I've had several goals for the series: (1) encouragement for those in recovery--or who need to be; (2) greater sensitivity for believers to addictions and compulsions within our mission field; (3) a challenge to us all, because even if we're not struggling with addiction we are all broken in some way.

Last Sunday we examined Step Seven (you can listen to the sermon here).  I promised to provide the congregation a little 9-point plan for putting Step 7 into daily practice, so here it is.  It's adapted from a book called The Path to Serenity:

(1) Continue to name your basic character defects. You need to re-state these to yourself as a way of pushing back the veil of denial that has kept you from seeing these defects in the first place. Return to the moral inventory you took in Step 4, and review the patterns of thought that led you to say in Step 6,"Yes, I'm ready."

(2) Hand the defects back over to God's care. And the reason the word "back" is in that sentence is because we can safely assume that you and I will have to get into practice at turning our shortcomings over to God. Sometimes in my prayers I picture myself kneeling before God's throne, and visibly handing my sin to God, saying, “God, I cannot get rid of this under my own power. Please remove it from me, please remove from my nature anything that causes me to return to it.”

(3) Specify very carefully what needs to be changed for just this one day. What this means is that, if I wake up in the morning and say, for example, 'I should never ever be compulsive again and I promise I never will,' I am doomed to disappointment. It just isn't going to work. First, we must specify what needs to be changed. Instead of asking, 'Make me a better person,’ we focus tightly on the specific personality defects that need correcting. Second, instead of making a blanket request that covers an indefinite amount of time, we break our requests down into small digestible bits of personal effort--today, this morning, the next thirty minutes, or even, 'the next sixty seconds.'

(4) Ask God to touch the parts of you that need to be changed. Again, it's praying not only that God would remove the sin, but that God would change that part of your soul that keeps drawing you back to that sin. For example, ask God to remove not only a lustful heart, but that God would touch that part of your soul that doesn't know how to relate to the opposite sex in any other way but the physical.

(5) Act your way into a new way of thinking and feeling. An informal slogan used in many Twelve-Step recovery groups is, 'Fake it until you make it.' You may not be able to control your thoughts or your feelings, but you can control your muscles. I remember that account of Jesus healing the 10 lepers in Luke 17. “As they went, they were healed.” Upon the request of the lepers for healing, Jesus had told them, “Go, show yourselves to the priest.” A leper was to return to the priest who had pronounced him unclean only when the symptoms of leprosy had disappeared. The local Jewish priest would examine the man and then allow him back into the community or return him to the lonely outskirts of the city depended on whether or not the leper had been cured. When Jesus commanded them to show themselves to the nearest priest, he was in effect saying, "Consider your request fulfilled."

Verse 14 says, “As they went, they were healed.” Ultimately their confidence in Jesus as a healer is not seen in the fact that they asked him to heal them but that they acted on his words. They must have wondered at his confusing command: Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests and there had not yet been any word of healing or any symptom that the leprosy had been cured. Their confidence in the Master transcended any demand for concrete evidence: they knew that their need would be met because Jesus had spoken. They had a simple confidence that Jesus's words could be counted on: "As they went, they were healed." It’s as we go about life in obedience to Christ that we slowly find healing taking place.

(6) Be willing to bear discomfort. Any time you're trying to change something as ingrained as a personality defect, it will feel awkward and even bad for a certain period of time.

(7) Think secure thoughts. That is, remind yourself that this time of change and pain will bring something far better.

(8) Develop new habits with repetition. You may need to fake it until you make it day after day, week after week, and, in some cases, month after month, until you can really see results.

(9) At the end of the day, stop and thank God for any and all of the smallest changes. It’s important to take time at the end of the day to acknowledge to yourself even the tiniest sense of progress.

Song of the Week: "Praise the Lord" from the Sovereign Grace Psalms CD

You can get today's song for free--and the entire project it came from is on sale this week for $6.00 (click here). Psalms was selected as one of 2009’s “Best of the Best” by Worship Leader Magazine. Here's "Praise the Lord" from that project:

Do Musical Styles Have More Power to Divide Than the Gospel Has to Unite?

Bob Kauflin asks how we can possibly pass on the biblical values of worship if we can't even sing in the same room together. Do "musical styles have more power to divide us than the gospel has to unite us"? Good stuff--about 3 minutes:

Physical and Moral Cleansing

See if you can catch what doesn’t belong in the follow sentence. It’s from an otherwise interesting article in Time magazine called “Do ‘Clean’ Smells Encourage Clean Behavior?”

Catherine Elton covers a fascinating subject about the interplay between physical cleanliness and moral purity, including ties to religious rituals of cleansing. And then she shoehorns in an unsubstantiated personal bias. Take a look-see:

Nevertheless, both morality researchers and olfactory scientists agree that people do strongly associate physical cleanliness with purity of conscience. It is the notion at the heart of adages like ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ and evidenced by the widespread use of cleansing ceremonies to wash away sins in various religions around the world. (Truth be told, that practice is merely an extrapolation of an evolutionary strategy to avoid disease.)

Ah, well, now the truth has been told.

What authority does our writer quote to back up her contention that cleansing ceremonies—like, oh, let’s say, baptism—“is merely an extrapolation of an evolutionary strategy to avoid disease”? For that matter, what authority could she quote for a view that is easy to suppose and impossible to prove?

Yeesh.

That little flash of pop-anthropology aside, the article is worth a read. I'm always fascinated with stories of links between soul and body. And, of course, Scripture has so much to say about the purity/aroma link, including this: "Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him" (2 Cor. 2:14).

Book Summary: Made to Stick

If you're in the persuasion business, Chip Heath and Dan Heath have done you a great service.

Come to think of it, that includes just about anyone reading this post. As a pastor, most of my job involves persuasion: in the pulpit, in counseling, in staff meetings, issuing a vision/challenge, and so on. But if you're a parent shaping the child(ren) God has given you, or an manager raising the morale of your office, or a teacher in front of a class, or a lawyer in front of a jury, you're in the persuasion business, too.

In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, the Heath brothers explain why persuasion is hard--and how to make it work:

Getting a message across has two stages: the Answer Stage and the Telling Others Stage. In the Answer Stage, you use your expertise to arrive at the idea you want to share. Doctors study for a decade to be capable of giving the Answer. Business managers may deliberate for months to arrive at the Answer.

Here’s the rub: The same factors that worked to your advantage in the Answer Stage will backfire on you during the Telling Others Stage. To get the Answer, you need expertise, but you can’t dissociate expertise from the Curse of Knowledge. You know things that others don’t know, and you can’t remember what it was like not to know those things. So when you get around to sharing the Answer, you’ll tend to communicate as if your audience were you.

They suggest six ways to improve the "stickiness" of your ideas. Turn your idea into a

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story

A nice recap of the book here.

What I Need From an E-Reader

I'd love an Amazon Kindle or BN's new Nook, but something's missing from e-readers as far as I can tell. I want to be able to copy quotes or segments from any e-book I'm reading. That way I can paste the chosen text into a blog post to comment on it, or paste it into my illustration database for later reference in my sermon prep or article writing.

So, anyone know if any of the e-readers allow that? Drop a line to tom-AT-hbcaustin.org.

LeaderLines: You Are God’s Instrument in Conversion

Changing minds is our job.

Of course, Scripture tells us that changing minds is a supernatural work of the Spirit. But you and I are God’s instruments in conversion.

And that means that if we’re not actually converting people to Jesus we’re, well, failing.

As church leaders (volunteer and paid), we can fall into thinking, “My job is to prepare a program, show up on time, and run it.” But God is looking to see if our leadership is resulting in anyone’s conversion.

How do I know this is what God is looking for? Because of the way he calls and commissions people in the Bible stories. John Piper wrote a helpful column about this today. He outlined 5 ways the Bible talks about our role in the conversion of others:

• “I am sending you to open their eyes,” the risen Christ said to Paul (Acts 26:17-18). Opening the eyes of the spiritually blind is God’s work (2 Corinthians 4:6), but Jesus sends Paul to open their eyes.

• “I have become all things to all people,” Paul wrote, “that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). He knew that God does the saving (Jeremiah 24:7), and yet Paul said he did whatever it took to “save” people.

• “Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering,” James wrote, “will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). Isn’t God the one who brings people back to himself (Jeremiah 31:18; Isaiah 57:18)? And yet the Bible calls us to bring people back from sin and death.

• “He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,” the angel said of John the Baptist, “and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.” (Luke 1:16-17). Again, though God works to turn hearts to himself (2 Thessalonians 3:5), John the Baptist was commissioned to turn hearts to God.

• “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God,” Peter wrote, adding, “And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23-25). So, the same Bible that says the Spirit of God causes new birth, blowing where he wills (John 3:8), also says that the new birth comes from someone preaching the gospel.

So, according to the texts above, we are to “open their eyes,” “save some,” “bring back” sinners from their wandering, “turn many” to the Lord, and see people born again through announcing the good news to them.

Our purpose is to be a community where people can find and follow Jesus together. Are you deliberately aiming any of your leadership activity toward helping people find Jesus, or are you just focusing on helping believers follow Jesus?

“God is the decisive, ultimate cause of conversion,” Piper writes, “But we are his agents, and he calls us to join him in this goal. Not to aim at it is to put ourselves out of step with his command and his Spirit.”

So . . . are you in step?

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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Googling "Evangelical"

Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said his followers are aliens and strangers. Start a Google search for "evangelical" and see what you get:

(HT: Jared Bridges)

Here are some "laws" that are so true...

Here are some "laws" that are so true...

Law of Gravity:
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability:
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers:
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Law of the Alibi:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law:
If you change lines in a queue, the one you were in always will move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

Law of the Bath/Shower:
As soon as the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters:
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of Machination:
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of Biomechanics:
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theatre:
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

The Starbucks Law:
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers:
If there are only two people in a gym locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces:
The chances of an open-faced sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

Law of Logical Argument:
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

Brown's Law of Physical Appearance:
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Oliver's Law of Public Speaking:
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy:
As soon as you find a product you really like, they will stop making it.
(from TIPS newsletter. Copyright (c) 2009, all rights reserved. U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1529-059X. Contact Philip E. Humbert at:www.philiphumbert.com  or email to  Coach@philiphumbert.com

From PreachingNow

Winning Ways: In the Master’s Hands

Maybe you’ve heard the old song about the auctioneer holding up an old, beat-up violin. “How much do I hear for this antique? One dollar? Give me two. Two dollars? Who has three?” He was able to get the bidding up a few dollars more, but that’s where it stalled.

That is, until a violinist stepped up to the stage, tuned the strings, and began to entrance the crowd with music. Suddenly, people were shouting out bids in the hundreds to buy the violin. In the hands of a skilled master the violin came alive.

A few years ago, Ken Ulmer closed a Pastor’s Conference with the same vivid image:

“A violin in my hand will get you some squeaky noise; but a violin in Itzhak Perlman’s hand will get you the music of the masters.

“Marble in my hand is just a piece of ugly, dirt-covered stone; but marble in Michelangelo’s hand will get you a magnificent David.

“A peanut in my hand is just a small snack; but a peanut in George Washington Carver’s hand is peanut butter and shoe polish.

“A basketball in my hand is worth about $29.95; but a basketball in Shaquille O’Neal’s hand and in Kobe’s hand and in Michael’s hand with hang time is worth about $30 million.

“A tennis racquet in my hand is a dangerous weapon; but a tennis racquet in the Williams sisters’ hands is a tennis champion.

“A golf club in my hand means “look out, there’s trouble coming”; but a golf club in Tiger Woods’s hand wins the Masters. It all depends on whose hand it’s in.

“Spit and clay in my hand will get you a little mud cake; but spit and clay in Jesus’ hand will open blinded eyes. Two fish and five loaves of bread will get you a couple of fish sandwiches in my hand; but in Jesus’ hand it will feed the five thousand. Nails in my hand might get you a little birdhouse; but nails in Jesus’ hand hanging on the cross between two thieves on a hill called Calvary is salvation for the world, because it all depends on whose hand it’s in.”

How true.

So, whose hands hold your life?

Join us this Sunday at 10 a.m. as we learn how to place our lives in the Master’s hands. The youth group will serve the Lord’s Supper in the service.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday October 20

Life magazine presents 30 dumb inventions. I like the sea-shoes and the machine gun that can shoot around corners. What’s your favorite?


“Tom Krattenmaker suggests that Tim Tebow should adopt a ‘more generous conception of salvation.’ And now we all know the price of being seen as ‘more generous.’ Just abandon the Gospel. I am confident that Tim Tebow will withstand this pressure. He has shown enough theological maturity and strength of conviction to earn that confidence. But, we have to wonder, how many others will fold under the intimidation?” (Albert Mohler)


After years of delays and billons of dollars, the particle supercollider has yet to yield a thing. These physicists suggest it may be the future world coming back to impact the present day so that the supercollider will not be built. And I thought Terminator was just a fun flick….


“In a study of more than 3,000 mustard seedlings, scientists discovered that the young plants recognize their siblings — other plants grown from the seeds of the same momma plant — using chemical cues given off during root growth. And it turns out mustard plants won’t compete with their brethren the way they will with strangers: Instead of rapidly growing roots to suck up as much water and minerals as possible, plants who sensed nearby siblings developed a shallower root system and more intertwined leaves” (Wired).


It’s the Barack Obama Bible Cover! (HT: MMI)


Study: Majority Of 'Calm Downs' Ineffective


Having an Ephesians 5:33 marriage isn’t easy. Some good articles for wives here and here. (Yes, I’ll continue to supply articles for the men, too!)


“Much as we may assent to the idea that we are but matter in motion, seldom do we act that way. We love. We fight. We distinguish between the good and noble and the bad and base. More than just religion, our literature and our politics and our music resonate precisely because they speak to these things” (WSJ)


“A survey of 16 to 24 year olds has found that 75% of them feel they ‘couldn't live’ without the internet” (BBC).


What happenned when they turned a stairwell into a piano keyboard (HT: Curtis):

Here Comes the Bride

This video is approaching 29.5 million views on YouTube--and caught the attention of the creators of The Office, who used the idea for Jim and Pam's wedding on the season opener:


Dancing is par for the course for my young Baptist friends in Zambia. They gather for months of rehearsals to create a one-of-a-kind dance for each wedding celebration they are asked to participate in. Of course, the dances in Zambian celebrations usually take place at the reception, not the wedding ceremony.

If you're planning a wedding at Hillcrest and the video gives you any ideas, let me remind you that the officiant for the wedding wasn't part of the line! I've performed an underwater ceremony, but you wouldn't want me part of a dancing processional....

The famous YouTube video was referenced in a good article posted today at CT, "Lord of the Wedding Dance." The article reflects on what's right--and often wrong--about modern wedding ceremonies.

What is an Evangelical?

In an interview with CT, John Stott was asked to define the essence of evangelicalism:

An evangelical is a plain, ordinary Christian. We stand in the mainstream of historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity. So we can recite the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed without crossing our fingers. We believe in God the Father and in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

Having said that, there are two particular things we like to emphasize: the concern for authority on the one hand and salvation on the other.

For evangelical people, our authority is the God who has spoken supremely in Jesus Christ. And that is equally true of redemption or salvation. God has acted in and through Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners.

. . . [W]hat God has said in Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ, and what God has done in and through Christ, are both, to use the Greek word, hapax—meaning once and for all. There is a finality about God’s word in Christ, and there is a finality about God’s work in Christ. To imagine that we could add a word to his word, or add a work to his work, is extremely derogatory to the unique glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Justin Taylor linked to this CT interview, and called attention to a lecture in which Stott outlined evangelicalism in four points:

1. The claim of evangelicalism
2. The distinctives of evangelicalism
3. The concern of evangelicalism
4. The essence of evangelicalism

I'll listen to the lecture during my next workout.

By the way, the JT post is on a new blog at First Things called "Evangel." Check it out.

Song of the Week: Joe Henry's "The Man I Keep Hid"

This one seemed fitting during our "Get a Life" sermon series (archived here). Joe Henry sings about the man he keeps hid. Listen:

Next Steps for the Pro-Life Movement

Christianity Today says, "Political change is giving the abortion lobby an upper hand. What's the best action for pro-life Christians to take next? Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net, Clenard H. Childress Jr., founder of BlackGenocide.org., and Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, suggest the next steps for the pro-life movement."

• Volunteer at a Center (Melinda Delahoyde)
• Speak Out Publicly (Clenard H. Childress Jr.)
• Pass More State Laws (Charmaine Yoest)

On the federal level, your tax dollars will fund abortion through the health care proposals being discussed. As Charmaine Yoest points out in the WSJ : "Democratic leaders claim that all they want is to maintain the 'status quo' on abortion. In reality, maintaining what we have now isn't even on the table. To do that, a health-care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions. Provisions that would have done that were killed by all five committees that have handled health-care reform bills this year."  So why, Yoest asks, is health care reform "being sold on the false premise that it would maintain the status quo? Because otherwise the American people would not go along with it."

Just before the election last year, I outlined "Three Things that Pro-Life Obama Supporters Must Do." It's time to review that list.

Faith in His Faithfulness

"Unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we are so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth: namely, that God is faithful."

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, a reading project for 2009, the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth.

Winning Ways: “I Yam What I Yam”

Popeye was a philosopher.

Well, sort of. Actually, he was a sailor man who loved the sea and spinach straight from the can. He had a thing for a skinny gal named Olive Oyl and a soft spot in his heart for a kid named Sweet Pea.

But from time to time Popeye would wax philosophical. He accepted his life as it was, and he expected others to do the same. He would say, “I yam what I yam.” Sometimes he would add, “And that’s all that I yam.”

We really have two ways to react to our imperfections. We can imitate Popeye or Paul. In Philippians 1:13, referring to the goal of Christ-likeness, Paul said, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold if it. But this one thing I do: I press on.”

Had some of us written that verse, we would have said instead, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But, hey, I’m only human, so what do you expect? Don’t get your hopes up. I yam what I yam.”

This is why some of us never reach our full potential in Christ. We never become “entirely ready” to let go of the habits and attitudes that keep us in defeat. We come to a kind of tired truce with our weaknesses and simply accept that we can’t make things any better.

This Sunday at 10:00 a.m., we’ll learn to quit saying, “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam.” Join us!

Take the Prayer Tour! This Sunday, come 45 minutes earlier than normal for a Prayer Tour through our facility. It will begin and end in the auditorium, and it will take 45 minutes to complete. You can begin anytime between 8:15 and 9:15 a.m., depending on what activities you have to get to. Many of our people will choose to begin the Prayer Tour at 9:15 a.m. and end at 10 a.m. in the auditorium in time for the worship service to begin.

You can choose the start-time that works best for you because the Prayer Tour will be self-guided. When you arrive in the auditorium you will be given a map of our facilities and a prayer guide. The guide will tell you where to stop in the building and what to pray for at each stop.

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The Popeye reference is adapted from a book by John Ortberg.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday October 13

“Two Gordon College professors, based in Massachusetts, authored a recently published study, “Pulling the Mask Off of Facebook: The Impact of Social Networking Activities on Evangelical Christian College Students,” which studied the use of Facebook in more than 1,300 students at Christian colleges. Their main premise is that many students who are using Facebook and other social media technology are doing it so much that they don’t have time for the reflection that Christians should engage in.” (Joshunda Sanders, Of Sacred and Secular)

 

Related: I wrote about our need for self-control in a wired world and linked to a clip from a great sermon on the subject here.

 

Those between the ages of 16-24 are having a hard time finding a job. BusinessWeek says it’s a crisis, both now and in the future, and both for young adults and the society at large.

 

Two young women are still being held in Iran's notorious Evin Prison after refusing to deny Jesus Christ and return to the religion of peace.

 

“Eating a Mediterranean-style diet — packed with fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil and fish — is good for your heart, many studies have found. Now scientists are suggesting the diet may be good for your mental health, too” (NYT).

 

“What if Jesus Christ showed up in the 21st century? What would he look like? What would he do? Michael Belk, a Florida fashion photographer turned biblical chronicler, decided to find out.” (Read about Belk’s project to photograph Jesus in modern settings; view his images at his website.)

 

“The most au courant thing about Hayley Williams [lead singer and singwriter for Paramore] might be her upbringing—she grew up in a Christian household outside of Nashville, Tenn., a background she shares with fellow pop-rock superstars Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift (who moved to the state at age 13). From Cyrus and Swift to Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson, there's clearly something in the baptismal water these days—the top of the pop heap is crawling with Christian girls” (Slate).

 

“Disorientation begets creative thinking, though it can also lead people to embrace bizarre conspiracy theories....When [normal] patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one” (NYT).

 

The Most Annoying Phrases: “In a recent Marist poll, nearly half of Americans – 47% – said they find ‘whatever’ most annoying. The other sayings weren’t quite so loathed. 25% say they find ‘you know’ most grating; 11% can’t stand “it is what it is”; 7% would like to ban ‘anyway’ from all verbal exchanges; and 2% reported that they could do without hearing ‘at the end of the day.’” (story)

 

Related: "Totally like whatever, you know?" happens to be one of my favorite poems.

 

Good-bye, Email: “Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.”

 

Reaction to Awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize:

“This ill-concealed crusade is clearly damaging the prestige of the Nobel; the winners are supposed to be honored for their achievements, not for symbolizing the committee's grudges. And it probably won't do Obama any favors; he wants to be a leader, not a symbol, and honoring him for his rhetoric about a new American approach to diplomacy only reinforces the meme of his critics that he's merely a man of rhetoric.” (Time)

“Let's face it: this prize is premature to the point of ridiculousness. It continues a pattern that holds some peril for Obama: he is celebrated for who he is not, and for who he might potentially be, rather than for what he has actually done” (Swampland).

“Mr. Obama’s aides had to expect a barrage of churlish reaction, and they got it. The left denounced the Nobel committee for giving the prize to a wartime president. The right proclaimed that Mr. Obama sold out the United States by engaging in diplomacy. Members of the dwindling band of George W. Bush loyalists also sneered — with absolutely no recognition of their own culpability — that Mr. Obama has not yet ended the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq” (NYT Editorial). Wow, these guys don't read the same websites I read. Criticisms from the right and left, yes (well, more mystified bemusement). But not for the reasons the NY Times gives.

The Austin-American Statesman defends the choice of President Obama for the award: “It doesn't say anything about results. It's about effort. And, though a work in progress, Obama has made a bold effort to reposition the U.S. among the family of nations.”

Slate says you really can't take the decisions of 5 people in the most eccentric and provincial country in the world too seriously.

Fun with Photoshop: Time magazine photoshopped Obama receiving other awards.

An Award for Not Being Someone

Mike Grunwald at Time magazine gets it right: Today's Nobel to President Obama is the 89th Nobel Prize for Peace, as well as the fourth Nobel Prize for Not Being George W. Bush. He warns:

"This ill-concealed crusade is clearly damaging the prestige of the Nobel; the winners are supposed to be honored for their achievements, not for symbolizing the committee's grudges. And it probably won't do Obama any favors; he wants to be a leader, not a symbol, and honoring him for his rhetoric about a new American approach to diplomacy only reinforces the meme of his critics that he's merely a man of rhetoric."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929433,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

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LeaderLines: "Is 'Find and Follow Jesus Together' Sticky?"

Hillcrest is a community of people finding and following Jesus together.

How “sticky” is that statement in the hallway conversations among Hillcrest members?

I’m reading the New York Times bestseller, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath. The first principle of sticky ideas is simplicity. Not shallowness, but simplicity: packing a lot of meaning into a little bit of messaging.

“Hillcrest is a community of people finding and following Jesus together.” That’s half the length allowed for a tweet, and yet there’s a lot of meaning packed into it that statement: Finding . . . Following . . . Together.

“Finding Jesus” -- Doesn’t everyone believe that a church should be a place where those who are curious about Jesus can find him? Sadly, no. Oh, every Christian I’ve met believes in personal evangelism—well, at least in theory. But few know or care about being deliberately mindful of spiritual outsiders at every church gathering. It’s different at Hillcrest: We want to be a community where people with little or no background in Christianity feel “at home” from the moment they gather with us. Passages like Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14:23 tell me that Hillcrest should expect non-believers to be present when we gather to worship the Name and study the Word. Not only should we expect seekers to participate with us, what we do should intrigue them and even convict them. Worship and Bible study are “for believers,” yes, but not just for believers. Hillcrest is a place to find Jesus, like the Greeks who came to Philip in John 12:21 saying, “We want to meet Jesus.”

“Following Jesus” – But Hillcrest isn’t a “seeker” church where everything is designed simply to introduce nonbelievers to the faith. What should nonbelievers see when they attend the ministries and activities of Hillcrest? They should see people faithfully following Jesus. We should be like the believers Paul commends in 2 Thessalonians 1:3, whose “faith is growing more and more.” So, we’re a church where people challenge each other to (have you heard this before?) honor God, invite people to consider Jesus, love each other, and live the Word. Every command in Scripture can be summarized in those four statements.

“Together” -- Don’t leave out that word, “together.” We’ll never be as effective alone as we will be together in our spiritual search or in our spiritual growth. People figure out Christianity and grow in Christianity only as they discuss things together, challenge each other, pray with each other, and watch how others live the faith. Neither our spiritual search nor our spiritual growth will go far unless it’s done with others.

Some churches are very effective at helping people find Jesus, but they don’t really focus on helping people grow once they’ve come to faith. Other churches are very effective at helping people follow Jesus, but frankly they’re uncomfortable with the issues and questions that seekers raise. Our church needs to be where people can come together to meet Jesus and grow in him.

Tim Keller put this well in a lengthy interview for “The Cutting Edge” magazine. Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and I tend to read and listen to anything the man releases, because he’s got a lot to say about what he calls “city-center churches” like Hillcrest. Keller says:

In Acts 2 and 1 Cor. 14:23 we see non-believers attracted and challenged by worship. We learn there that non-believers are expected in worship, and that non-believers must find worship challenging and comprehensible. In city-centers where there are a mixture of world-views, it is crucial to include both Christians and non-Christians in the same service--even in many of the other meetings and ministries of the church. . . . Why? In a “mixed” group, when the preacher speaks somewhat more to non-Christians, the Christians present learn how to share the faith. . . . On the other hand, when the preacher speaks more to Christians, the non-Christians present come to see how Christianity “works.” . . . In short, a center-city church should not simply “do mission” or “do evangelism.” Every part of its ministry should be geared routinely both to Christians and non-Christians, and expecting non-Christians to be “overhearing” whatever is said and done in any context.

. . .

If you speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited. Why? Most Christians, even when they are very edified in church, know intuitively that their non-Christian friends would not appreciate the service. What you want is for a Christian to come to your church and say, “Oh! I wish my non-Christian friend could see (or hear) this!” If this is forgotten, soon even a growing church will be filled with Christians who commute in from various towns and communities far and wide rather than filling up with Christians and seekers from your church’s immediate neighborhoods.

So, pray that Hillcrest becomes famous as a community of people finding and following Jesus together. Pray for this vision to “stick” in our congregation.

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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Andy Serkis as Uncle Screwtape

Got word that Focus on the Family Radio Theatre has released a full-cast dramatization of the C.S. Lewis classic. And it stars Andy Serkis (Gollum of 'The Lord of the Rings') as Uncle Screwtape. The press release is here and the product website is here.  (HT: Pure Church)

A Thirty Year-Old Conviction: To Know Nothing Except Christ Crucified

"This is our acquittal: the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the the head of the Son of God [Isa. 53:12]. We must, above all, remember this substitution, lest we tremble and remain anxious throughout life--as if God's righteous vengeance, which the Son of God has taken upon himself, still hung over us."

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. (My current reading project in the 500th anniversary year of Calvin's birth.)

Since I began serving as a pastor 29 years ago, it has been my single resolution: to know and communicate "Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2)

Why Wrath?

"[S]ince our hearts cannot, in God's mercy, either seize upon life ardently enough or accept it with the gratefulness we owe, unless our minds are first struck and overwhelmed by fear of God's wrath and by dread of eternal death, we are taught by Scripture to perceive that apart from Christ, God is, so to speak, hostile to us, and his hand is armed for our destruction: to embrace his benevolence and fatherly love in Christ alone."

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. (My current reading project in the 500th anniversary year of Calvin's birth.)

Winning Ways: The Price of Admission

The boy just wanted to hide some bad grades; his marks made international news instead.

A few years ago a teenager in New York set fire to his exam papers in the privacy of his bedroom. It seems he wanted to hide the poor grades from his parents. The fire quickly grew out of control, though, and ended up gutting the entire second floor of his home.

The 14-year-old set the papers alight and threw them out of his second-floor room. An ember blew back into his room, and soon flames were consuming the furniture and licking out the window.

It began as a way to keep his parents from discovering his poor grades, but his effort at hiding his failures resulted in disaster. Far from hiding his failures, eight fire trucks and sixty firefighters responded to the blaze, and newspapers around the world ran the story as an offbeat news item.

There were no injuries, police said. Yeah, right. Anyone who can remember being fifteen knows that's not true!

The boy felt "the price of admission" was too high. The price of denial turned out to be higher.

As an old saying goes, "confession is good for the soul." This Sunday morning, October 11, we'll discover what the Bible tells us about the importance of admitting our failures to God, to ourselves, and to a trusted individual.

Take the Prayer Tour! Mark your calendars: Sunday, October 18, we’re holding a Prayer Tour through the Hillcrest facility.

It will begin and end in the auditorium, and it will take 45 minutes to complete. You can begin anytime between 8:15 and 9:15 a.m., depending on what activities you have to get to. Many of our people will choose to begin the Prayer Tour at 9:15 a.m. and end at 10 a.m. in the auditorium in time for the worship service to begin. Some of our senior adults will choose to begin at 8:15 a.m. and end at 9 a.m. in time to go to their Sunday School class.

You can choose the start-time that works best for you because the Prayer Tour will be self-guided. When you arrive in the auditorium you will be given a map of our facilities and a prayer guide. The guide will tell you where to stop in the building and what to pray for at each stop.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday October 6

Nice article about Colt McCoy’s Christian testimony.


Austin is still among the top 5 “youth magnet” cities for those 18-29.


Here’s a fascinating story about people in London authorized to go into the mud of the Thames River at low tide to dig around for artifacts from London’s history. If you can’t find a sermon illustration in that story, turn in your ordination credentials. And you’re welcome.


In a piece on working technology while driving, the NYT described a driver who “grabbed his cellphone to arrange a new shipment, cradling it between his left ear and shoulder, and with his right hand e-mailed instructions to his staff from his laptop computer — all while driving his rental car in a construction zone on a two-lane highway in North Carolina.” C’mon, folks: Don’t turn your car into an office cubicle.


“Is this gossip?” Nine questions to ask before you share something.


Interesting piece on the worldview of filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen.


“My hypothesis: the problem with organized religion isn’t that it’s too religious, but that it’s too organized….Organizations lose their relevance when the rate of internal change lags the pace of external change. And that’s the problem that besets many churches today….Over time, visions become strategies, strategies get codified into policies, policies spawn practices, and practices become habits. That’s organizational entropy” (Gary Hamel, WSJ).


“Want Christian grunge? Christian metal? Christian indie? Christian emo? Christian screamo? In 2009, you can have it all, and a lot of it is on Tooth & Nail. MewithoutYou, the label’s most interesting act, might also be its most heretical: having spiraled along the spiritual trajectory of its mercurial singer, the band now wraps up its live set with what can only be described as a Sufi worship song: ‘In everyone we meet / Allah, Allah, Allah!/ In everyone we meet’” (Hmm, I didnt know mewithoutyou had veered off. Not my scene)

The "Conscious Capitalism" of Whole Foods' John Mackey

I'd like to see a book on leadership and management from Austin's John Mackey, CEO and founder of Whole Foods Market Inc. Especially his views on what he calls "conscious capitalism." Most people probably know him from the firestorm he generated in August following his WSJ op-ed piece, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare." Over the weekend, the WSJ followed up with an interview. You should take some time with it. I like what he has to say about the higher purpose of one's business--and capitalism in general:

Mr. Mackey's latest crusade involves traveling to college campuses across the country, trying to persuade young people that business, profits and capitalism aren't forces of evil. He calls his concept "conscious capitalism."

What is that? "It means that business has the potential to have a deeper purpose. I mean, Whole Foods has a deeper purpose," he says, now sounding very much like a philosopher. "Most of the companies I most admire in the world I think have a deeper purpose." He continues, "I've met a lot of successful entrepreneurs. They all started their businesses not to maximize shareholder value or money but because they were pursuing a dream."

Mr. Mackey tells me he is trying to save capitalism: "I think that business has a noble purpose. It's not that there's anything wrong with making money. It's one of the important things that business contributes to society. But it's not the sole reason that businesses exist."

What does he mean by a "noble purpose"? "It means that just like every other profession, business serves society. They produce goods and services that make people's lives better. Doctors heal the sick. Teachers educate people. Architects design buildings. Lawyers promote justice. Whole Foods puts food on people's tables and we improve people's health."

Then he adds: "And we provide jobs. And we provide capital through profits that spur improvements in the world. And we're good citizens in our communities, and we take our citizenship very seriously at Whole Foods."

Song of the Week: "Invisible Hand" by Tracy Lawrence

Tracy Lawrence has a new album out, The Rock. Some good stuff on it, including this song, "Invisible Hand." Only complaint: I'm mystified at the poor recording glitch that closes out the song (at least the version I downloaded from iTunes). I reworked the song and loaded it back into my iTunes without the glitch. Listen:

Making Sense of Hatred in the Bible

Have you ever been troubled by the "imprecatory psalms" in the Old Testament? The ones that call down curses or wish someone dead (sometimes in brutal ways)?

John Piper suggests seven things to consider as you try to understand them.

Prophet Priest King

Tim Keller has an interesting perspective on the ways different churches approach their task. Referring to the threefold work of "prophet, priest, and king," he says:

"The Willow Creek style churches have a 'kingly' emphasis on leadership, strategic thinking, and wise administration. The danger there is that the mechanical obscures how organic and spontaneous church life can be. The Reformed churches have a 'prophetic' emphasis on preaching, teaching, and doctrine. The danger there is that we can have a naïve and unBiblical view that, if we just expound the Word faithfully, everything else in the church -- leader development, community building, stewardship of resources, unified vision -- will just happen by themselves. The emerging churches have a 'priestly' emphasis on community, liturgy and sacraments, service and justice. The danger there is to view 'community' as the magic bullet in the same way Reformed people view preaching."

http://www.rcpc.com/blog/view.jsp?Blog_param=44

LeaderLines: Self-Control in a Wired World

I discovered something about myself a long time ago: I’m capable of being a really sophisticated procrastinator.

Yep. If I’m not watching myself, I can let busyness pass for business.

Laziness, I would smugly think, was not my problem. No, Proverbs 6:10-11 wasn’t written for me:

A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest,
And poverty will come on you like a robber.

But I began to notice that I had another thief to steal away my productivity. Not laziness, for me, but busyness. And I think busyness just may be the more sneaky thief.

Laziness is easy to spot. Think chips and soda while sitting on the sofa watching a talk show. Not my problem.

But busyness? It gives you the satisfaction of action while robbing you of any real production. It’s finishing the news magazine article when you should really be writing your report. It’s organizing your to-do list when you should really be punching things off it. It’s even found in doing something that you hired office staff to do just so you can avoid what you were hired to do.

And then, lo, there appeared the computer, then the internet, and then the wifi-enabled smartphone. Crack for busyness-addicts!

We need to make sure that our productivity tools are making us, well, productive. That’s why I like this 7-minute clip from Josh Harris. It’s from a sermon on Proverbs 6, and he suggests we could paraphrase it in this way:

A little web-surfing
A little Facebook
A little folding of the hands around your smartphone
And spiritual poverty will come on you like a robber.

So, take a look at this clever clip and let the Spirit convict you of any way you’ve let busyness keep you from the things you should really be doing:


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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.