A scripture many of us are familiar with. It’s often used when talking about evangelism. 1 Corinthians 2:1-4:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Whenever I come across this scripture I’m baffled how something so clear can be so totally neglected in institutional church ministry at large.

Even though he was well educated and able to debate the world with the best of them, Paul resolved not to employ such methods. This was so that when the people believe, there would be no risk that their faith would rest on his power of persuasion, but on God’s power alone.

While parts of the church are beginning to move into a healthier mindset, there is still a huge, possibly even vast majority, of the church who is still spending loads of money and time and resources attempting to craft an appealing ministry that will draw in crowds. It’s like Tim Keller says:

“What you win people with, you will keep them with.”

Don’t get me wrong, there is value in meeting people where they are at and allowing ourselves to be culturally relevant. But that happens on a personal level, not a corporate one. When the church manufactures ‘relevance’ the world can tell and just adds one more drop in the bucket for why the institutional church shouldn’t be trusted.

Romans 1:16 says:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Most of the time, I feel confident saying that I am not ashamed of the Gospel. I don’t usually have the inclination to shrink back from talking about it or its power.

However, I am ashamed—very ashamed—to be associated with this:

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on YouTube)

Just for the record, a ‘rough rider’ (which this group of youth pastors from ‘The Father’s House’ in California repeatedly calls themselves in this song) is a type of condom designed to enhance sexual pleasure. It’s also a (gross) sexual technique. Painfully lame and uninformed.

What the hell? Wake up people! Seriously, there is absolutely no part of this that’s okay.

As I said last week, I’m currently reading Dane Sanders’ Fast Track Photographer to help inspire some new thoughts on my photography business. He has quite a lot of interesting things to say. And today, I read something particularly pertinent, no just to a business in the technology industry, but to the endeavors of the church as well.

Sanders writes:

“If you embrace our times with an open mind, you will have a dramatic competitive advantage. Just remember that the day will come when things will change again. An attitude of staying creatively adaptable may be the single most important asset in extending your lifespan as a photographer…”

The landscape of the photographic industry is in a unique place historically. It won’t operate the way it used to and no one really knows what exactly it’s going to change into.

The church is in almost the exact same place. Although, we shouldn’t be competing with each other.

Thanks to massive changes in technology, our culture interacts in a way that is almost completely different from how it used to interact 10 years ago. And, no one really knows how it’s going to interact in six weeks, let alone in another 10 years.

The church is severely dwindling in its ability to reach a culture (not to imply that it is our approach that solely sustains our effectiveness). However, it’s hard to deny that it’s in part thanks to most Christian’s unwillingness to engage the culture in the way that the culture engages itself.

What does that mean exactly? I don’t fully know. But I’m betting it includes (but is not limited to) things like engaging in social networking technologies, not on a corporate level, but on a personal one. Many, many churches are attempting to build a corporate presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. But almost no churches are encouraging their members to sink themselves into these technologies personally.

But that’s where the culture is engaging. It’s not about having bible study in a Starbucks. It’s about going there yourself and doing what you do there. It’s not about having a Facebook page for your young adults ministry, it’s about having the whole young adults ministry on Facebook—from the members (who probably already have Facebook) to the pastors and lay people (who probably don’t).

This is just one (big) way our culture is operating, but the church is failing to. It’s nothing like how we used to do things, but it’s not going back to how it used to be (at least not any time soon). And, like Sanders explains, it’s not going to be like this forever. It will change into something else, and we must change with it.

As the church, we need to abandon our ‘culture’ and be a part of the larger one. It may look completely different, but at it’s core, failing to do so isn’t much different from failing to introduce yourself and build a relationship with the new neighbors next door. In fact, often, they might be one in the same.

I’m sure you’ve read the verses in the book of James that talk about the tongue. It is a “restless evil”, says James. He compares the tongue to many things. A tiny ‘spark’ that sets a forest on fire. A small ‘rudder’ that steers a whole ship. A ‘bridal’ in a horses mouth that can be used to guide it around.

James argues that the tongue, although it is small, is the source a great deal of trouble for man.

Every teaching I’ve ever heard on this verse gives a good deal of personal application. Congregations are to control their tongue and this is an excellent argument for that.

But I’m not sure that the congregation is really who James had in mind when he wrote this bit about the tongue.

Possibly for the first time, I noticed that another frequently quoted verse is actually a tiny piece of context that puts a whole new spin on James’ message about the tongue. The very first verses in fact. James 3:1-2:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

Why does James go directly from a word on teaching and teachers and the fact that every teacher make’s mistakes in his teaching into a discussion of bridling the tongue? I think it’s because the ‘body’ he talks about throughout the rest of the chapter is not one individual body who is guided by his own tongue, but the whole body of believers who is guided by the tongue of their teacher.

Not many should aspire to be teachers because all teachers make mistakes, and with many, many teachers comes many misconceptions and the church ends up ‘set on fire’.

Of course, I don’t think this is the only viable interpretation of this verse, but I think it makes perfect contextual sense. And perhaps it’s a concept churches who turn teaching authority over to small group ministries should consider.

I finished reading 2 Timothy yesterday. In Paul’s closing thoughts, he exhorts Timothy 4:1-2):

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

I’ve always found this to be an interesting exhortation. Why not just say, “Always be ready to preach the word”? Why did he choose to be specific and refer to seasons? As I’ve thought about it, I think there’s probably a lot of reasons. But I think of two in particular.

1. Seasons of the soul. People ebb and flow and there’s no way around it. A lot can change from one emotional state to another, even the way we choose to interpret things. I think it’s possible that Paul was telling Timothy that regardless of what season he found himself in emotionally, or physically or socially or whatever, he should remember that his duty is to preach the word and he needs to be ready for it. And,

2. Seasons of ministry. I think that this one is probably a bit more likely since it seems to agree more with the context—particularly the statement immediately following it. There are times that are for ministry (missions trips, church, youth group, whatever) and there are times that are not for ministry (like going to the movies or out for dinner). But I think that Paul was telling Timothy that he needs to be prepared for ministry even in the times that are ‘not’ for ministry.

The Church could take a queue from Paul’s exhortation here. We’re in a time where almost no one is ready ‘out of season’. Especially not ministers, most of whom are too wrapped up in their gigantic labyrinth of a church system.

I think that’s pretty bad. Especially when most people in our culture don’t want anything to do with our ministers ‘seasons’.

From the time that I was doing small group ministry, I doubt that I can count on two hands the number of times I was accused of being a cult leader. Either to my face or as vague rumors. Of course, it was a combination of flagrantly abusing the word ‘cult’ and not quite knowing how to respond to a really tight knit small group.

We never passed around poison juice. We never entered into death pacts. Although, one time I did shave my head which, over the next few days, was copied by a number of the guys.

Even though the group had it’s problems and I still had a lot to learn about leading people (and still do), the reality was that good things were happening. The guys in the group and myself were learning a lot about what it meant to follow God and be a believer and have faith.

But every time one of these cult rumors would spread, on the outside I would laugh it off. But on the inside I was really insecure. I didn’t want people to think that about me. Eventually, criticisms like those caused me to respond at least a little reclusively. Reading in Nehemiah today reminded me of that time in life and ministry.

Nehemiah is rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in the face of pretty heated opposition from it’s neighbors. After trying to convince him to stop several times before, a group of men write a letter to king Artaxerxes full of slander that, although from the outside it appears as though it could be true, it simply isn’t. The men present Nehemiah with the letter their threatening to send.

Then I sent to him, saying, "No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind." For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

In hindsight, I would have liked Nehemiah’s insight and wisdom to take the accusations from his opponents and turn with them to God and say, “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”

I think that’s pretty cool. Live and learn, I suppose.

It was over four years ago now. Although it seems much longer. I was leading a small group of high school guys. And, of those guys, I was teaching a smaller, more intensive discipleship group.

The discipleship crew would meet once a week and study the Word. I would come each week with a handout to guide our discussions. They would usually be in question-answer format and would also serve as my own notes. Today, one of the guys from that group asked me if he could get copies of those handouts to give to one of his friend’s who is a new Christian.

The question made me a little nervous at first. When I started the small group and discipleship group I was only beginning to explore the more intricate parts of Christian theology; In retrospect, I’m not sure I was a good person to do the job I was doing. So the idea of giving handouts from that time could potentially be quite humbling—and no one likes that (Okay, 95% kidding)!

But, I wasn’t about to be that defensive about my ego. So I obliged and I decided print them out for him. As I’ve been doing so, what I’ve found has been surprising.

When my pursuit of theological understanding finally brought me to questions of destiny and predestiny and of course the larger questions of Calvinism—I fought hard against the argument. I was raised believing staunchly in the absolute free-will of man. Although not on the basis of any spiritual authority, but simply on a kind of that’s-the-way-things-are way. Some of the basic claims of Calvinism cast serious doubt on those ideas.

You see, when I became a Christian, I wasn’t discipled much into anything; no specific doctrinal position—except the discipline to read the bible. So that’s what I did, I read the bible. What I apparently didn’t realize was that  the foundational teachings of Calvinism were being laid in my mind all by themselves—just from reading the bible.

Today, as I’m going back through and reading these handouts, I’m realizing that my thoughts at this time were already Calvinistic in nature. No one had taught me, no one had explained it to me. In fact, my religious upbringing would probably call these claims heretical. Yet, simply searching scripture on my own brought me to what I would later understand as “Calvinism”.

I find that to be pretty fascinating. It bolsters my confidence in the Word of God being able to teach a reader the truth all on its own. That’s pretty cool, I think.