Daniel Darling's Blog, page 69

How Small Churches Can Love Their Communities

Today I’m over at Trevin Wax’ blog with a guest post. The subject is how to love your community if you are a small church:

What if you are the pastor of a small church but would like to do something to serve your community? What if you love the idea of adopting a school, but barely have enough resources to cover your nursery on Sunday?

Is it possible to do acts of mercy in your local Jerusalem with a tiny band of volunteers? Surprisingly, it is. Here are six tips for small church outreach:

1. Relieve yourself of false guilt.

If there is one thing that plagues small church pastors in a big metro area, it’s the constant guilt about what your church is “not doing.” Mostly this guilt comes as a result of comparing yourself to the other churches in town.

Instead, begin to look at the entire body of Christ in your community rather than your own specific congregation. You are just one of many God is using in that region to bring about His glory. When I finally realized that God wasn’t calling Gages Lake Bible Church to be the entire Church to our local region, it enabled me to focus on a few small areas of opportunity and giftedness.

Read the rest of the post here:

Five Ways We Do Family Worship

I’m a big believer in family worship. I believe God has clearly called parents to intentionally teach their children the ways of God. But for some, the idea of family worship is a bit scary. Either they don’t know how to do it or they think it means three hours every night of exegetical study through Leviticus.

But family worship doesn’t have to be scary or boring or a drudgery. It can be simple. Here are five ways we do it:

1) Around the Table. Sometimes we do it at dinner, other times we do it at breakfast (especially if I’m home for those meals). We usually use some kind of tool. In the past we’ve used the Jesus StoryBook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones, a book every Christian parent should own (in my opinion). Right now we are using an excellent book, Proverbs for Kids. This is a terrific book takes a proverb and offers some practical spiritual truth applicable to kids. It doesn’t take very long and it always includes a relatable story. We decided to do Proverbs because we just felt our kids needed some relational wisdom during this season of their lives. I also highly recommend New City Catechism by The Gospel Coalition. There are other really good resources out there for children as well.

When we do this around the table, it’s very informal. I usually read some Scripture and do some explanation, then I ask the kids questions about it. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we joke. After we are done, we usually offer a prayer. But we’re very intentional about teaching our kids about the Scriptures. The table is a great place to do it. We are all gathered, we’re enjoying God’s good provision of food and the grace of conversation. I think it’s important for families to share as many meals together as they can.

2) With a Hymnal or Singing. We don’t do this as often as we do the above, but every so often I will reach over and grab a hymnal and we’ll sing some songs together as a family. It can be really fun. What I love about the hymns is that they ground spiritual truth into the hearts of our children. We also like to listen to good Christian music in the car or at home. Sometimes words will come up, especially with hymns, that need explanation. This is a great way to share with our kids some good ideas and truth.

3) In everyday life situations. I love Moses instructions to the parents of Israel to teach God’s truth whenever their kids “sit down” and “rise” (Deut 6:7; 11:19). I don’t think this is a legalistic exercise. I think it is simply telling parents to use every opportunity that comes up, in daily life, to point to Jesus. We really try to do this and you’ll be surprised by the really cool conversations that come up. As a parent, you don’t have to do this in a scolding, lecture-type way. You can be fun, witty, and conversational.

But daily life presents golden opportunities for conversations about the gospel, about the character of God. And we’ve observed that sometimes these are more formative than the structured, sit-down, type of things we do. Our kids need to know that all of life is God’s, not just the space we reserve for him on Sunday. This is God’s world and we live in it, to worship and glorify him.

4) Before Bed. We have some of our great conversations before bed. Well, at least on the nights we are not getting to bed late and just trying to get to bed ourselves! But many nights, we’re able to do a lot of praying. We try to have each kid pray to God, to get used to that idea. It can be a bit chaotic to keep the kids from messing around during prayer. But there are some moments where you hear your kid pray an incredibly honest, beautiful, heart-warming prayer to the Lord. And you, also, can model prayer when you pray in front of your children. We also try to pray for at least one missionary every night. We’ve had stretches where we’ve slacked on this a bit, but we try to get back to doing it. We also ask our kids, “So, who do you think we need to pray for tonight.”

5) With reading literature. This may be a bit of a stretch, since reading books other than the Bible may not technically be “family worship”, but it is part of teaching. We try to expose our kids to some good reading, both classics and biographies. And as we’re reading, we try to share and explain Christian themes and concepts. We’re also fortunate that our homeschooling curriculum is heavy on literature. So my oldest daughter Grace has already read several missionary biographies. Parents can do this in a variety of ways, but it’s really helpful, I think, for kids to hear good stories and expand their wisdom and knowledge of God’s world.

Bottom Line: Our family doesn’t do worship perfectly and I’m sure there are better ways, resources, etc. Every family has to figure out what works best for them. However, we should all strive to be intentional with our kids’ spiritual education.

Relationships and the Great Commission

This Sunday I preached from Romans 10, where Paul reminds us that we are the instruments God sovereignly uses to deliver the gospel news to the world. “How will they hear without a preacher” is motivation for every follower of Jesus to be that preacher. It doesn’t necessarily mean  only pastors and missionaries do the preaching, but all Christians should in some sense, preach the word to the lost. We should do this winsomely, lovingly, and intentionally.

This passage convicts me in a lot of ways. For starters, it presupposes that I actually care about those who don’t know Jesus. In my daily life, how often is my heart broken for the brokeness of the world around me?

Secondly, Paul’s words also presuppose something else: that we are actually building relationships with people not like us so that we may be the bridge that leads them to Jesus. Much of our Christianity is focused on prevention. Some of this is good. As parents we want to shield our children from negative influences and harmful media consumption. And yet, we must not do this in such a way that conflicts with the Great Commission. It occurs to me that the enemy, who hates seeing people connected to Jesus, is okay with us retreating so deep into our own Christian subcultures and bunkers, into our political ideologies and networks, that we don’t actually interact with anyone else enough to make friends with them in order to be the one reflection of light in their dark world.

The Great Commission carries with it an assumption. Jesus assumed those who have had an experience with Him, whereby they know that He has died on the cross, rose again in victory, and is alive regenerating their heart–these people will surely tell others. There is an assumption that we won’t be silent. But underneath even that assumption is that we will take Jesus’ own prayer in John 17 to heart and realize we were put on this earth to be His representatives.

In plain words, this means one thing: we must be intentional about building long-term, thick, vibrant relationships with people who are different than us. People of different races. People of different backgrounds. People of different religions. People who don’t vote the way we do. People who may not live like we think they should live.

You see, we can’t simply carry out the Great Commission on a fly-over basis. By this I mean that staying in our bunkers and then emerging every so often to “gospel-bomb” people with Heaven tracts isn’t what, I think, Jesus is talking about. I love Heaven tracts and know that many have come to faith in Christ because of them. Yes.

However, if we think sheepishly slipping a tract underneath the check at a restaurant gets us off the hook when it comes to the Great Commission, we are doing it wrong. Liking the Jesus page on Facebook can’t be all we do. Wearing the fish symbol on our cars can’t be all we do.

We must vigorously, intentionally, get to know people within our circles of influence.

We do this in two ways: We first love them. By loving our lost friends and neighbors and relatives, it means we apply 1 Corinthians 13 and really, really love them. You will not engage with people you fear or  despise. Ask Jonah how this works. He hated the people of Nineveh. It wasn’t that Jonah didn’t think God could save them (Jonah 3), it was that Jonah didn’t want God to save them.

We will not intentionally engage people we either fear or do not like. So for some of us, it maybe time we tune out the rhetoric we hear on talk radio and cable news and online about various people groups. Because quite often we can let our politics shape our theology rather than our theology shaping our politics.

Yes, because we love our cities we should stand for things we believe are good for human flourishing. No apologies for that. And yet, if our politics turns into actually disliking, mocking, and avoiding the “other”, then we are doing it wrong. We are here, they are here, and the Great Commission compels us.

Maybe it’s time we evaluate the way we shelter our families in such a way that we keep ourselves walled off from our communities. How will they hear without a preacher? That preacher, that person is none other than you and me.

Secondly, we do this by building intentional relationships. We must be wise in the way we pursue relationships. We should build friendships, not simply so we can spring the book of Romans on the after the third conversation. We should build natural, human friendships that grow over time. And we should allow the Spirit of God to guide us when we need to being the evangelism conversations. For some it may take months, even years for that to come up. For others it may be natural to discuss right away. The point is that we should let our friendships be natural. People know, especially in this cynical age, when they are being targeted for a “sale.” But friendship is something entirely different. It’s real. It’s human. It’s not “bait and switch.”

Friendship is love. We need to engage with warmth, authenticity, and reality. We should let our expressions of faith, our evangelism, flow naturally. If Christ is our life, then those who get near us will know it. We’ll not be able to stop talking about Him.

Of course all of this means that we are in our communities. It means we’re outside talking to our neighbors, inviting them over to our homes. It means we’re joining the local YMCA’s or other organizations where people gather. It means we’re participating in some of the charitable and civic endeavors in our towns and villages and cities.

And, properly understood, bearing the message of Jesus is not a strain. It’s a joy. Paul said that it was the love of Christ that compelled him to tell others (2 Corinthians 5:4). What a privilege it is to bear this beautiful message of the gospel! We should share it intentionally, actively, and lovingly to those God puts in our life.

Relationships are key to obeying the Great Commission.

Out of Ur: Friday Five: Matthew Lee Anderson

Today, for Leadership Journal, I interview my friend Matthew Lee Anderson. Matt is a gifted thinker and writer. He runs the influential blog, Mere Orthodoxy. His first book, Earthen Vessels offered a terrific theology of the body and his latest work, The End of our Exploring is a look at how we ask questions.

It was this book that I wanted to discuss with him. Seems today that young evangelicals are fond of “asking questions.” I’m a big question asker myself. And yet, Matt says we must recognize that even our questions can be tainted by the Fall.

Modern evangelicals, largely, seem to believe questioning is always a good thing. But you’re saying that not all types of questioning are good. Why is this?

For biblical reasons, first and foremost. The first question we see in Scripture is not simply a dud; it’s thoroughly malicious and deceptive in its very form. Satan asks Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). That alone should be enough to make us all realize that not all our forms of questioning are good.

Read more from the interview here: 

The Limits of Outrage and the Need for Joy

Yesterday I read this blog post by conservative political columnist and radio host, Erick Erickson. I have mixed feelings about Erick. Even though I find that I agree with many of his political views, I find his tone and style of politics is not my particular style. Still, he’s a gifted writer and this time he shared something I think Christians need to hear. His point is that while he cares about politics and advocates for his point of view, outrage is not all there is to life. Erickson writes:

I’m sorry, but I can’t live my life constantly fixated on the political outrage of the day and I can’t be outraged about every  . . . thing under the sun. I go out with friends and talk about stuff other than politics, I play with my kids, I love my wife, I cook gumbo and make fantastic ice cream, I watch a bit of TV, don’t read as much as I should, I go to church, and I try to focus on the good in a world filled with sin and bad and evil . . .

There is such a word here for Christians. A word for me, particularly. While it is good and right to be outraged at injustice in the world, we can’t live on outrage. While it is good and right to roll up our sleeves and make a difference in the world by our lives and our actions, we can’t live on activism. You see, the narrative of the Scriptures is not just about what’s right and what’s wrong in the world and in our own hearts. The grand story is that there is good news available. God didn’t ignore the evil that the Fall produced by sin. He spoke by the entrance of His Son, Jesus, into the world (Hebrews 1:2). When Jesus cried those anguished three words on the cross, “It is finished,” it signaled the beginning of the end. The power of sin and death, which so strangles the human soul, which ravages the planet, which obscures the glory and grandeur of our great God–this has been defeated, and like a helium balloon, is dying a slow death. Evil, my friends, is not winning. The story of the Bible is that there is hope in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Perfect One, the Son of God.

This is why Paul, in his letters, didn’t speak with outrage about the world around him. Do you notice that about him? Take Phillippians, written from imprisonment, an unjust one. And yet in this letter he lifts high the risen and glorious Christ and commands Christians everywhere to rejoice. He doesn’t use this as a diatribe against the despot, Nero, who used Christians as torches to light his dinner parties. He doesn’t vent his frustrations at the Christians who were embarrassed by him and turned their backs on him. Nah, Paul doesn’t do that. Neither does Peter in his letter to the “strangers and foreigners” of the 1st Century, a church marginalized by his culture. Now, he instead calls them to courage and faith and joy. Yes, joy. The same word used by the very first pastor of the Jerusalem Church, James. He says to his people that they could find joy even in the worst of persecutions (James 1).

This is not to be confused with as sort of happy clappy, saccharine Christianity devoid of proper lament. This is not to replace the brokeness that God does in the heart of Christians as he sees the state of the world. Think of Jesus who wept over Jerusalem. Think of Jeremiah, the tear-soaked prophet of God’s people. Think of Habakuk who asked God, “How Long?” Lament is a good part of the Christian life. Grief is a necessary function of processing life in a fallen world. Even Jesus wept at the fruit of sin, the death that stole away the best years of his friend, Lazarus’ life.

To find joy, to live for joy, to extol the beautiful Christian story of hope is not to adhere to the prosperity-gospel of “everything turns out fine” mentality, because everything doesn’t really turn out fine in this life. But to find joy means to process everything in life: death, headlines, politics, evils, injustices, bad diagnoses, car breakdowns, corrupt leaders, wayward churches, divorce, foreclosure, abuse–all through the lens of the gospel story. After all we are citizens of another kingdom, we are people who look for a new city, whose builder and maker is God. This is what our Bible’s tell us is reality.

Life was once perfect. Sin messed it (and us) up. We need a rescuer to save us who is like us but is not like us. That Savior came. He demands our allegiance, but offers us free grace. And those who put their faith in Him are part of a new people, a new way of life, a new kingdom.

So yes, it’s good to be outraged at what is going in the world. It’s vital to let our brokeness move us to action, joining the work of God already in progress. But more importantly it’s incumbent on those who’ve tasted His joy to make the grand gospel our melody. Let’s find the silver linings, the good things in life and use them as evidences of God’s good grace. They are all around us, everyday, if only we look for them. Let’s be as intentional about finding joy as we are about fomenting outrage.

 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Philippians 4:4

 

Activist Faith-Interviews and Blogs

Yesterday my book (cowritten with Dillon Burroughs and Dan King), Activist Faith released from Navpress. I wanted to share some of the conversations around this book from the web:

I wrote a guest post for Micah Fries, on the subject of crisis pregnancy centers:

While we are waiting and praying for Roe versus Wade to be overturned, there are opportunities to snatch babies from the precipice of death—in our own neighborhoods, one life at a time. And we have an opportunity to apply the grace of the gospel to young unwed mothers, helping them care for their children well after they give birth.

I’ve had the chance to work with a crisis center in our community. I’m amazed at the compassion, the love, and the effectiveness of this outreach. Though most young evangelicals might not see it this way, to serve and support a local CPC may be the most missional thing you can do. Not only are you shepherding a young girl through the biggest decision of her life, it provides an opportunity to share the good news of God’s love with someone who may feel as though their choices have left them ineligible for God’s grace.

Read the rest of that blog by clicking over to Micah’s site.

Then, I did an interview with Michael Kelley. Here is a portion of that interview:

1. What specifically made you want to write a book regarding Christian involvement in issues like these?

I’ve always had my ear to the ground when it comes to political issues and even dabbled in elective politics, helping some friends run for Congress a few years ago. But in the last five years I’ve served as a pastor and I feel it is part of my duty to help God’s people think clearly about the issues in our community, our country, and our world.

What strikes me is just how effective the Church can be when it mobilizes in a community. We can and should engage these issues on a political level (voting, speaking out, etc), but much of the work in solving issues is done on the ground, one person at a time, in very nonpolitical ways. I wanted to highlight these opportunities, so I invited my friends, Dan King and Dillon Burroughs to get involved. The idea is pretty simple: If you are particularly arrested by an issue, yes you should vote accordingly, but more importantly, there are ways you can help alleviate the problems, right  now, in your local community. I’m amazed at just how the way God designed the Church to uniquely respond to social ills in a way that no other institution can.

You can read the whole interview by clicking over to MIchael’s blog

Then, Trilla Newbell interviewed me for CBMW:

Q: Why did you decide to write this book?

Dillon and Dan and I had the idea a couple of years ago. I’ve been a follower of politics most of my life and as a pastor, I’ve seen the impact of God’s people, motivated by the gospel, to meet human needs in their community. What strikes me is that after the elections are over and, regardless of whether your guy has won, there are needs you as a Christian can meet in your community. And if you look at almost every major social issue, there are followers of Jesus actively meeting those needs, on the ground, in a quiet and productive way. So the purpose of this book is really to help people leverage the concern they have for particular issues and connect them to ways they can help in nonpolitical ways in their local communities. So, for instance, if you’re hacked off about abortion–yes vote accordingly and speak out–but in the meantime, roll up your sleeves, open your wallet and support a local crisis pregnancy center. You can actually save real babies and help real women in your town.

Read the whole interview here

And if you are available, I’d love to invite you to a special webcast with The High Calling at 2PM Eastern Time.

Live What You Are Trying to Lead

Today for Leadership Journal I had the privilege of speaking with Bryan Loritts, lead pastor of Fellowship Memphis and the son of Crawford Loritts, the popular author and pastor. Bryan has written extensively and spoken on racial reconciliation in the church and pastors a congregation in one of the most racially tense areas of the country. One question I asked him was this:

How can pastors and church leaders, of any race, promote racial reconciliation in their churches?

First, preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. When Paul writes Ephesians chapter 2, before he gets to our horizontal reconciliation in verse 11, he deals with our vertical reconciliation with God in verses 1-10. As he would say to the Corinthians, being reconciled to God through the substitutionary atoning work of Jesus Christ is of first importance.

Second, be intentional. Race is a human social fabrication. Biologically there’s no such thing (just one human race). However, the social construct of race has been woven so deeply into the fabric and psyche of our nation, that we cannot be passive when it comes to matters of racial reconciliation. We have to be deeply intentional, the same kind of intentionality we find in Christ who by his blood “ransomed” people from every nation tribe and tongue (Revelation 5:9-10).

Third, live what you are trying to lead. This is Leadership 101 and applies to everything, especially matters of race. Again, we see this in Paul. Notice the people he hangs out with. In Romans 16, Paul gives a shout out to his friend Rufus…Rufus! That ain’t a Jew! Paul did life with people who were ethnically different than him. If the leader isn’t experiencing ethnically diverse relationships how can he with any sense of authenticity tell people to do what he’s not doing?

via Out of Ur: Friday Five Interview: Bryan Loritts.

Activist Faith Releases Next Week

It’s hard to believe, but that moment the every author dreams of is here. My fifth book, Activist Faith, is releasing next week with Navpress. This is unique of all my books for several reasons, not the least is that its my first collaboration. I cowrote Activist Faith with my two friends, Dan King and Dillon Burroughs. Dan is a gifted writer, blogger, activist. Dillon is a multi-published author, speaker, and professor. The idea behind this book is simple: let’s take twelve hot-button issues in the culture and a) explore why Christians should engage them and b) offer ways that individuals and churches and help solve these issues, locally and outside of politics. We’re not advocating a retreat from the public square by any stretch, but we’re simply reminding Christians that there are great ways to solve problems that don’t involve campaigns and picket signs and Facebook posts.

If you’d like to find out how you can roll up your sleeves and live out the gospel in your community, you’ll want to preorder the book today.

I also invite you to check out the Activist Faith website, but first here is some more info about the book:

“Evangelicals are rethinking their involvement in politics, so this is a hot topic. It’s a discussion worth having, and Activist Faith is at the cutting edge of the conversation.”

– Matt K. Lewis, senior contributor, The Daily Caller

“The challenges facing our country and world are many. Daniel Darling, Dillon Burroughs, and Dan King provide thoughtful, biblically guided analysis of several of the most pressing issues of our day, challenging the church to let Scripture be our primary guide as we advocate for those who are vulnerable. Read this book, but don’t stop there: Let it move you into prayerful action.”

– Matthew Soerens, U.S. church training specialist, World Relief; author of Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion, and Truth in the Immigration Debate

“Authors Dillon Burroughs, Daniel Darling, and Dan King do a great job of luring much of the American Christian church to a conversation already taking place among far too few Christians. It is a discussion about ‘elephant in the room’ issues that usually reside with us for far too long without resolution. Read this book and take responsibility for these same such issues and for their solutions as you encounter them in your town, church, and home.”

– Charles J. Powell, founder of Mercy Movement, Mercymovement.com

“Twenty-first–century Christ followers stand committed to reconciling the vertical and horizontal planes of the Cross: sanctification with service, holiness with humility, conviction with compassion, and righteousness with justice. In Activist Faith, the authors exhort us to find a cause greater than ourselves, one that marries the promise of salvation with prophetic activism. For a generation seeking to live out our faith, this book is a must-read.”

– Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

“This generation has more tools than ever before to help them live generously. Activist Faith explores the fundamental connection between the desire to engage in the world and the realities of what it will cost. More than anything else, it empowers you to do good work for the sake of the gospel.”

– Mike Rusch, COO, PureCharity.com

“As Christians, we are called to make a positive impact on our world—to make it a better place. Activist Faithis one of those amazing resources that educate people on the issues and equip them to make a difference. A must-read!”

– Jen Hatmaker, author of 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

“The authors of Activist Faith challenge all who take their apprenticeship with Jesus seriously to closely connect what they profess on Sundays with how they live the life of true discipleship on Mondays. Combining an engaging blend of biblical principles, captivating stories, and practical ideas, the authors give a compelling picture of how the gospel speaks to some of the most challenging issues of our time. Taking this helpful book to heart will encourage you to be a more faithful presence in God’s good but broken world.”

— Tom Nelson, author of Work Matters

“Activist Faith is a compelling book that deals with some complex global issues. It is filled with stories of hope and struggle, helping the authors wrestle with what it means to have a faith that cares deeply for those who suffer. This hope-filled collaborative work will help us all learn what it means to love our neighbor.”

– Chris Marlow, founder and CEO, Help One Now

“There has been a huge need for a book to give the theological background for why Christians should engage in social justice. Activist Faith fits that need perfectly. It provides solid biblical reasons  we should care about the poor, immigrants, and modern-day slaves as well as practical steps for how to take action.”

– Sean McDowell, educator; speaker; author of Apologetics for a New Generation

“Activist Faith meets the need of our time, offering examples of Christians responding to the social concerns of our world in ways that make a genuine and significant difference. In a culture where criticism of Christianity is often the norm, these pages provide a fresh perspective of what God’s people are doing to help those in their community and around the world.”

– Brian and Heather Pugh, actors; founders, Team Hollywood

Between Eden and Heaven

When I get to do leisure reading–reading that isn’t for ministry or school–I usually choose biographies. While I love to read about a wide variety of people, my favorite are American Presidents. I just got back from vacation where I consumed the very interesting book, Ike and Dick, a recent work focusing on the relationship between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.

I know. It’s an obsession without a cure. I’m a nerd this way. But indulge me for a moment and let me tell you what energizes me about reading presidential biographies. Reading history reinforces to me the grand narrative of the story the Bible tells. Here are three reasons:

First,I’m reminded that nothing is accidental and that God is gathering all of history to Himself. Even if all you study is American history, you realize how fragile it is. A few different choices, a few votes here or there and history would be completely different. I’m reminded of the turbulent sixties. Had JFK listened to the Secret Service and not rode through Dallas with the top down on the car, he’d likely have finished out his term. It’s likely he wouldn’t have escalated the Vietnam War as LBJ had–mainly because he didn’t suffer from the same insecurities as LBJ. Which means LBJ would not have been president during this tragic war. Or take for instance, the simple decision Robert Kennedy made to leave a Los Angeles hotel through the kitchen instead of the typical exits, where security was better. He likely would not have been the victim of an assassin’s bullet, which means he would have likely won the Democratic nomination for President instead of George McGovern. Had RFK been the nominee, he would probably vanquished Richard Nixon, whose unlikely political resurrection was due, in part to McGovern’s anti-war candidacy and the fissures in the Democratic Party.

This is just one time period. But American history is full of so many close calls. Actually all of history is like this. It turns on a dime. But it turns, according to Scripture, on the axis of God’s sovereign will. So reading history, to me, enables me to read today’s headlines with less fear and trembling, knowing that Christ is Lord over even today’s bad news.

Secondly, I realize that there is nothing new under the sun. I often get agitated at the unproductive partisanship displayed at all levels of leadership. There is a tendency to think that this is a new thing: men and women leveraging whatever they can to gain more power. But power plays, corruption, money grabs, and character assasinations are as old as sin itself. In fact, sometimes I wonder if the acrimony of earlier times in American history was worse than we find today. The way candidates sniped at each other, the way biased media dug up personal stories and had no fear in libeling those of other ideological persuasions. No, sin, sniping, strife predates even the American experiment. It stretches back to the first conflict in the very first family, where jealousy and self-righteousness led Cain to spill his brother, Abel’s blood. The motivations in the hearts of men have not changed in the millenia since the Fall. And so this reminds me that no movement or election or man-made effort can do what the gospel of Jesus Christ does in every generation: regenerate dead and black hearts. We an all try to be nicer to each other, but ultimately we’ll fail unless we are transformed from the inside out. This is why I love the gospel story. Without it, there is no hope in the world (Ephesians 2:12. And we are, of all men, the most miserable (1 Corinthians 15:19).

Third, I don’t have to long for the good old days nor put hope in a false future. If you look behind every social movement, there are one of two motivations. Either we are trying to reform–bring things back to a perceived golden era. Or we are trying to progress: shape a more hopeful future. This longing, I believe, is God-given. It’s rooted in the Biblical narrative. Though our nostalgia may, on the surface, point to the 1950′s or some other seemingly golden era, it’s really veiled longing for our original home: Eden. This idea we have that things were once good–told so often in our best tales–hails back to the Garden where man and woman walked with God in innocence, where evil was absent and life was as it was intended to be. This instinct we have that something messed it up is answered by Genesis’ account of a snake, an enemy, and a poison. Sin destroyed what man once possessed and now we are left longing for the place where we are no longer welcome.

And yet we have a yearning for things to get better, to improve. This desire for utopia, often warped by the evil imaginations of cruel dictators, is what fuels our political activism, is it not? We vote because we don’t like the status quo. We look for another political savior, put our trust in him or her, and then express our disappointment four years later when they turn out to be human. This is not new. Israel thought a king would solve their problems. And they soon realized that a king could often be the source of their problems.

This instinct, to yearn for something better, is also answered by the biblical narrative. What we’re longing for, a utopia where things are as they should be, is Heaven. Only we can’t create utopia. We can and should try to make life better, to alleviate human suffering, to create environments for human flourishing. But every generation fails at perfection. Every generation falls short of the glory of God. Followers of Jesus live with the real hope that Christ has defeated the sin that destroyed our Eden and has vanquished death. He’s coming back one day to reign as King and restore what sin destroyed.

So, Jesus’ followers should avoid the pitfalls of both overealized nostalgia and overrealized eschatology Returning to a mythical golden era (that never existed) denies the unique calling to live on mission in the time and place where God has uniquely called us. And the messianic impulse that says “we are the ones we have been waiting for” not only supplants Jesus as the ultimate agent of change, it sets us up for the frustration every generation of world-changers experiences: unrealized expectations.

We’re between Eden and Heaven. We don’t have to mourn the sin that kicked us from the Garden because the Savior vanquished it on the cross and in His resurrection. So our mission is to declare the good news of the gospel, roll up our sleeves and serve our communities, and keep our eyes on the city coming, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). We love our neighbor, not because we, or our movement, is his solution. Not to earn merit points with an angry deity. We do what we do, out of love, reflecting in some small and fallen way, the love of the perfect One, who is both Savior and Lord.

Only this gospel answers both our longing for what we have lost and the hope for a better future.

Tie Your Flag to the Gospel Mast

Today, for Leadership Journal, I interview Owen Strachan, former director of the Carl F. H. Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and current Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at Boyce College. Strachan is also the executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Strachan is an extremely gifted and often provocative writer. I’ve enjoyed his essays on sports, manhood, and a variety of other subjects. One of the questions I asked him was the question I typically ask my interviewees:

You’re a college professor. What is one piece of advice you’d like to give to a young man or woman considering a full-time ministry commitment? 

I can’t give just one coherent thought. Sorry.

1) Read up on Luther’s self-sacrificial “theology of the cross” as opposed to a self-exalting “theology of glory.”

2) Read Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor and take away from it a deeply counter-cultural ministerial spirit, one grounded not in numerical success or contextual benchmarks but in love for God and love for people.

3) Commit yourself to reading theology now, and promise never to think that theology and practice are disconnected. When tempted not to deepen your understanding of Holy Scripture through reading and study, remember that obedience to the First Commandment involves loving God with your mind.

4) Tie your flag to the gospel mast, and don’t ever let the culture or anything else alter biblical truth.

5) Have a bit of fun. Root for the Boston Celtics; run a marathon; roast your own coffee beans. Enjoy God’s good gifts. The best ministers are those who seem like, and upon closer examination actually prove to be, real people.

You can read the entire interview here: