Rob Bell interview

The Need for Christ in New England

10 Reasons New England Suffers For Mission

New England recently surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least churched, least religious section of the United States. There is a great move happening here, and many pioneering pastors and planters are getting excited about what God is already doing, but the need is still great and lacks for much exposure. As more church organizations launch more church planting initiatives, as churches earmark more and more money for church planting, and as networks announce more and more church plants, it appears that the vast majority of those called to plant churches are called to do so in places other than the neediest mission field. Now, every city needs gospel-centered churches, so I am grateful for those launching gospel-centered, missional works in the Bible Belt, the Midwest, and elsewhere. But the imbalance is not a little concerning.

To be honest, I don't know exactly why more church planters aren't coming to New England. But I can make some guesses, any of which, or several of which, may be accurate. In no particular order:

1. God's not calling people to New England.
Could this be it? Could the bottom line be that the vast majority of men called to plant churches in the States just aren't being called to New England?

2. Nobody knows about the need.
It could be that people are just unaware of the need. New England is outside their frame of reference or they do not think of it as a needy area. Lyandon Warren, an NAMB planter from the South, said he was at a seminary chapel service when the speaker just point-blank asked, "What's keeping you from planting a church in New England?" Warren hadn't ever thought of it that way, and he decided nothing was keeping him. He's now a few years deep into revitalizing a once-dead church in rural Pawlet, Vermont, and working at a dairy farm on the side. He's a guy who wouldn't have thought to come here until somebody put the thought in his head.

3. It is not as sexy as Africa.
Let's face it -- if we're talking about mission fields, New England, especially rural New England, has no prestige. In many cases, a missionary would get a whole lot more pats on the back for going to Africa or India than he would if he said he was going to New Hampshire. I've had several people want to know "Why Vermont?!!" that I know would not need explanation if I had gone to Sri Lanka. Vermont just ain't sexy. And some planters want to go places that "make sense." Or where there's a Starbucks.

4. The going is too hard.
Economically, philosophically, culturally -- New England is hard soil.

5. Planters are interested but their support systems are not.
Perhaps many men are very interested in going on mission to New England, but they can't sell a core on it, can't sell a sending church on it, can't sell a funding source on it. People may be really motivated to financially support a new church plant in Mobile, Alabama or among the urban poor of Detroit, Michigan, but it's hard to get excited about pouring money into New England. Maybe there are more willing planters than we realize, but they are having trouble getting resourced.

6. The work is too pioneering.
The field in New England is a little different from other, more densely churched areas. Church planting is never simple, but it's less simple in New England: guys can't just open up shop in a school auditorium, send some postcards out, get a rockin' band, and have a growing church in a few months. The culture isn't exactly amenable to that. There are variables here one might be able to anticipate in Nashville, Tennessee. But this is far from Tennessee. If you really want to be forced to think outside the typical church planter box, plant in New England. Maybe not so many do because it involves having to relearn lots of things; there's not as much precedent for it, or frameworks/formulas as for planting elsewhere.

7. It is too hard to attract local teams.
A dearth of indigenous support could be a real problem. New Englanders don't know much about church planting. It may be very difficult to recruit Christians from the area to join in such work because they are typically suspicious of anything "new," and for many New England churchfolk the notion of "church planting" isn't something they've ever heard of before. Their church was planted 200 years ago. Or it split from one that was.

8. It's lonely.
New England is not as big as the South, but the distance between missional believers and gospel-centered churches is greater. It is very easy to feel alone. Not many conferences come here; there aren't many local networks holding meetings within driving distance. If it weren't for social media, many gospel-centered pastors in New England might lack for any likeminded confidantes. This sort of "pioneer isolation" is not appealing to many church planters, who tend to be more extroverted types anyway.

9. A lack of Christians in the area leads to a lack of Christians interested in the area.
People want to go places they have knowledge about. Related to #2, it could be that because there aren't many Christian in New England, there simply aren't many Christians interested in New England. Planters tend to like to plant where they have previous connections. They want to go someplace they "know," even if they've never lived there per se.

10. We are disobedient or apathetic.
Finally, it may be that God simply isn't calling as many to New England, but it may also be that nobody's listening. Or they are, but just not obeying. I don't want to be that cynical about the situation, but contrasting the level of need with the direction of existing passion, it can get hard not to be. It's possible that people see the need and God is calling, but they simply don't want to come.

(By:

Jared Wilson)

8 Symptoms of False Doctrine

8 Symptoms of False Doctrine

Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine peculiarly dangerous.

1. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the teachers of error: their “earnestness” makes many think they must be right.

2. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely be safe guides.

3. There is a general tendency to free thought and free inquiry in these latter days: many like to prove their independence of judgment, by believing novelties.

4. There is a wide-spread desire to appear charitable and liberal-minded: many seem half ashamed of saying that anybody can be in the wrong.

5. There is a quantity of half-truth taught by the modern false teachers: they are incessantly using. Scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense.

6. There is a morbid craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational, showy worship: men are impatient of inward, invisible heart-work.

7. There is a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks cleverly, lovingly and earnestly, and a determination to forget that Satan often masquerades himself “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

8. There is a wide-spread “gullibility” among professing Christians: every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed, and everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a narrow-minded man.

All these things are peculiar symptoms of our times. I defy any observing person to deny them. They tend to make the assaults of false doctrine in our day peculiarly dangerous. They make it more than ever needful to cry aloud, “Do not be carried away!”

~ J.C. Ryle

The Master Poet

God has truly blessed mankind with senses and enjoyments that are not at all crucial to His redemptive plan.  He has given us the ability to see color, to taste wonderful foods and drinks, to hear beautiful music and to cherish the physical touch of a loved one.  Why has God taken such amazing liberty in creating us with so much artistic flavor?  The idea that we are Gods poem is an amazing concept.  God has spoken each  of us into existence with His ingenious creativity, he has ordered our features as unto his good pleasure, he has given each of us a sense of humor that can take great enjoyment from life, he has given us talents so that we can put Him on full display for others to see.  All that he has given us in the creative aspect; he gave us so that we can ultimately show Him off.  A poem can have many aspects, parts of speech, word play, subjective and objective truth, simile, hyperbole, all these and many more go hand in hand to display the beauty of the poem. In the same way we are God’s poem with many different parts that we can put together to put God, the Poet, on full display.

We are His poem, what is the purpose for his poem? Chiefly it is to bring glory to God – how do we do this? Eph. 2:10 we are his Poem created in Christ Jesus for good works, which god prepared before hand that we should walk in them.  Within the drama of His narrative poem we are created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of bringing glory to God, we bring glory to God by acting out the good work he has prepared for us since the beginning of time.  We are to seek out the Poets design for our lives so that we can bring more praise and glory to Him.  

Watch: Unearthing Sexual Exploitation | The Resurgence

Watch: Unearthing Sexual Exploitation | The Resurgence

We should never loose focus

An Open Letter to My Pastors on Glenn Beck


Dear Pastors -

I know it has been a few weeks now since the big Glenn Beck rally in Washington. Most of the conversation about it has centered on Beck’s Mormon faith. But that is not what prompts me to write to you. What prompts me to write is a statement Beck made on August 30 in an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s show, when he cheerfully celebrated that “240 pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams on stage all locked arms saying the principles of America need to be taught from the pulpit.”


As I’ve continued to think about this statement, I’m moved to write today and say “thank you” for not being one of them. Thank you for your faithfulness in preaching Christ from the pulpit, not “the principles of America.” Thank you for leaving that to others and reserving the sacred desk at our church for preaching, in the last few weeks, about the once-for-all sufficient sacrifice of Christ, about the privilege we have to approach God in prayer as Father, about Christ as the Wisdom of God, about Christ as the most valuable Treasure in the universe, worth trading everything to have.

I love my country and certainly I have concerns about where it is headed. But I also know that “this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31). I know—as you quote it week-by-week—that “all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever” (1 Pet. 1:24-25; cf. Is. 40:6-8).

So thank you for continuing to preach the word of the Lord and present the beauty of Christ, and for not being so short-sighted to preach the “principles of America.” You keep calling me to love Christ more than my country, more than anything, and this is the word I need most to hear.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/

Suffering in Sanctification Pt. 2

Paul states in 2 Thess 1:5 that, “This is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the Kingdom of God for which you are also suffering.” The Thessalonians are heralds to the faithfulness of God due to their faithfulness to the Gospel even in the midst of suffering. Paul understands that the Thessalonian church is being persecuted for the Kingdom of God and thus he encourages them by saying that God will repay with affliction those who have afflicted them (2 Thess. 1:6). So intimate is the relationship between the kingdom of God and the suffering of the people of God that Paul included the teaching that, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14.22) as part of his basic instruction of new Christians.^[1] Suffering and maturity in the Christian life are inherently connected in the teachings of the Apostles and in the teachings of Jesus. This is a teaching that has been affirmed throughout church history up until recently. Luther commented on this truth by saying,

“Therefore to destroy such works of ours as well as the old Adam in us, God overwhelms us with those things which move us to anger, with many sufferings which rouse us to impatience, and last of all, even with death and the abuse of the world. By means of these he seeks nothing else but to drive out of us anger, impatience, and unrest, and to perfect his own work in us, that is, his peace. Thus Isaiah 28:21 says, “He takes upon himself an alien work, that he may do his own proper work.” What does this mean? He sends us suffering and unrest to teach us to have patience and peace. He bids us die that he may make us live.^[2]

Today’s church has not only ignored this truth, but has taught plainly against it. We understand suffering to be a punishment for our sins, thus God pushing us away. It is understood that in the midst of suffering we should plead to God for deliverance and ask him for forgiveness for whatever it was that brought about the present agony. Our mentality is one that says, “tranquility of life equals favor with God.” A fallacious disposition such as this will deprive us from growing in our sanctification, and more so deprive God of the glory He deserves through our suffering. When read in its proper context the scriptures scream aloud the necessity of suffering, both in the New Testament and the Old. Peter makes the startling claim that unjust suffering is not to come as a surprise. This thought runs counter to modern sensibilities that consider suffering and hard times to be an abnormal state of life that should be avoided if at all possible. And if they can’t be avoided, they should be dealt with expeditiously so that “normal” life can resume as quickly as possible.^[3] Christ’s suffering, rejection, and execution normalize suffering for the Christian in this world. But to suffer because one is a Christian is at the same time to be blessed, because it marks one as belonging to God’s obedient followers, upon whom his Spirit rests. As Jesus himself taught, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you” (Luke 6:26) for such universal acclaim suggests that one has in some way compromised the testimony of God’s truth in order to please.^[4] The interpretation of suffering in our lives must be deduced directly with God working out his good pleasure, for any other interpretation is a contradiction to Scripture.

In 2 Thess. 1:11, Paul begins his prayer for the church by saying, “to this end we always pray for you…” Paul’s phrase to this end has no clear antecedent. The neuter pronoun “this” probably looks back to the preceding passage as a whole and the Thessalonians’ salvation and perseverance through persecution. The apparent disjunction between vv. 11–12 and what precedes is caused in part by a temporal shift. Verses 5–10 deal with God’s future judgment, while vv. 11–12 primarily return attention (as in vv. 3–4) back to the believers’ current Christian life.^[5] Thus in focusing on the current state of the believers Paul prays for them in vv. 11-12 by saying, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The shocking reality of this prayer is that Paul never once prays that the Thessalonians would be delivered from their suffering, but that in the midst of their suffering they would be found worthy of His calling. We see this same understanding of the value of suffering in King David in Ps. 4:1: “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress.” David does not praise God for delivering him from his distress, but he praises him for giving him relief in the midst of his distress. We can only find relief in the midst of suffering when we are seeking to fulfill the duty of our suffering, which is bringing glory to God. The peace God gives us during suffering is not some esoteric knowledge that is imparted upon us in the midst of pain, but it is the yielding of self in faith to the omnipotent God. As believers we must study to adorn the cross rather then avoid it.

---

[1]Gene L. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians, The Pillar New Testament commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2002). 285.

[2]Luther, “Treatise on Good Works, 1520,” LW 44, p. 77; cf. WA 6, p. 248

[3]Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005). 286.

[4]Ibid. 6

[5]D. Michael Martin, 1, 2 Thessalonians, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001). 216.