Letters from the Field

Time To Say Goodbye

2007-01-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

Maybe we will come back later in another form. You can check our own individual blogs or look for us on facebook where we will have redeployed. Thanks for stopping by!

We NEVER get beyond the gospel

2006-12-18T11:13:00.001-08:00

"We never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced.” The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.
WE are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom 1:16-17).

It is very common in the church to think as follows: “The gospel is for non-Christians. One needs it to be saved. But once saved, you grow through hard work and obedience.” But Colossians 1:6 shows that this is a mistake. Both confession and “hard work” that is not arising from and “in line” with the gospel will not sanctify you—it will strangle you. All our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel. Thus when Paul left the Ephesians he committed them “to the word of his grace, which can build you up” (Acts 20:32).

The main problem, then, in the Christian life I that we have not thought out the deep implication of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel—a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther says (on Gal. 2:14), “The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” The gospel is not easily comprehended. Paul says that the gospel online does its renewing work in us as we understand it in all its truth. All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do new “get” it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discover of a new implication or application of the gospel—seeing more of its truth. This is true for either an individual or a church."

-Tim Keller

We NEVER get beyond the gospel

2006-12-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

Who Stole the Men?

2006-11-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

Some disturbing stats (taken from Mark Driscoll's talk two weeks ago):

• There are 11-13 million MORE women Christians in the US than men

Women are:

• 100% more likely than men to be involved in DISCIPLESHIP
• 56% more likely than men to be involved in CHURCH LEADERSHIP
• 54% more likely than men to be involved in SMALL GROUPS
• 39% more likely than men to HAVE A NORMAL DEVOTIONAL/QUIET TIME
• 33% more likely than men to VOLUNTEER AT CHURCH
• 29% more likely than men to READ THEIR BIBLES
• 29% more likely than men to ATTEND CHURCH
• 29% more likely than men to SHARE THEIR FAITH
• 29% more likely than men to GIVE FINANCIALLY TO A CHURCH

If your heart doesn't break when you read those stats then... well I don't know but it is way sad.

So here are my TWO QUESTIONS:

1) What are we doing wrong? (including in Campus Crusade for Christ since we have men and women pass through our ranks)

2) What do we need to do to fix it? (Assuming you believe the kingdom of God is meant to be populated equally by men and women)

CCC Prez has the "Inside Story"

2006-11-03T17:28:00.000-08:00

Steve Douglas (CCCI Prez) is coordinating the “Inside Story” Conference this November 15-17.

Whether you know about the conference or not, or are familiar with its origins or not I think it is a worthy conference to take note of.

This particular conference was born out of a movement I have been following for a couple years. It was born out of the 2004 Lausanne Conference in Thailand as a special taskforce on “Making Disciples of Primary Oral Learners”. What came out of that meeting was the OneStory Partnership, the International Orality Network (or ION) and other key missions connections. I was at the 2005 International Orality Network Conference last year and I remember hearing that the following years the ION conference would branch into two conferences. One concerned with oral communicators internationally and another concerned with Secondary Orality in the postmodern West. The latter conference was called the “Inside Story" Conference for the postmodern or concrete-relational communicators. Steve Douglas has taken lead as coordinator for this conference.

Word is that Steve Douglas is going to talk about his own Bible narrative work in some university in Florida that he says can be turned into a effective and transferable model.

Check out the conference website for more info on what the conference aims at accomplishing. You might find this right up our alley as we need to constantly rethink effective gospel communication at Cal-Poly and elsewhere.
Any questions?

Any thoughts?

Missional Evangelism from iMonk

2006-10-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Nevermind how I found this article at iMonk, but I did. I don't read iMonk regularly, so don't get the impression I agree with everything he says because I don't know what he says. But this article about the "Future of Missional Evangelism" is interesting.

I looked at one other article in his series "Physician Heal Thyself" and iMonk pits reformational evangelism against revivalist techniques. One thing I have noticed in this article and other reformed books on evangelism is that a false dichotomy is created in that either evangelism is "friendship/earn-the-right-to-be-heard" evangelism or else it is a hideous "bait and switch" type of evangelism.

In CCC, we have always been about taking the initiative to share the Gospel and then leaving the results to God...as the old saying went. But no CCC'er I have ever known likes the idea of lecturing people without listening or spending time putting on big "revival" meetings where we twist people's emotions. We hate that kind of stuff, amen?

Missional evangelism is appealing because it falls in line with what we already have seen is the most successful evangelism--friends introducing friends to Jesus....which involves opening your mouth and communicating with real words about Christ.

That is not to say we don't see people come to faith when sharing randomly on campus. I have a friend who came to faith at Cal Poly Pomona over 25 years ago after a staff person approached her during lunch and shared the 4-laws with her. My friend says she was just "ripe fruit" ready to be picked. God ordained for her to meet this staff person "doing randoms" near the stables one afternoon.

Of course, I hear some of you saying, "Yeah, that was 25 years ago....things were different." Yeah, I am an old guy. But remember what the Bible says about gray hair. Watch it.

Anyhow...that is not really my point.....it's just that I came across this article on Missional Evangelism and it articulates some of the things we have already been discussing.

A little encouragement...

2006-10-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

This post recently by Piper encouraged me, so I thought I would share it with you all. Piper was feeling the pressure of comparison after his national conference and all the amazing speakers that were there. So in meditating on John 21:18-22 God led him to these conclusions:

"Book after book, conference after conference, DVD after DVD—telling me how to succeed in ministry. And all of them quietly delivering the message that I am not making it. Worship could be better. Preaching could be better. Evangelism could be better. Pastoral care could be better. Youth ministry could be better. Missions could be better. And here is what works. Buy this. Go here. Go there. Do it this way. And adding to the burden—some of these books and conferences are mine!

So I was refreshed by Jesus’ blunt word to me (and you): “What is that to you? You follow me!” Peter had just heard a very hard word. You will die—painfully. His first thought was comparison. What about John? If I have to suffer, will he have to suffer? If my ministry ends like that, will his end like that? If I don’t get to live a long life of fruitful ministry, will he get to?

That’s the way we sinners are wired. Compare. Compare. Compare. We crave to know how we stack up in comparison to others. There is some kind of high if we can just find someone less effective than we are. Ouch. To this day, I recall the little note posted by my Resident Assistant in Elliot Hall my senior year at Wheaton: “To love is to stop comparing.” What is that to you, Piper? Follow me."

You can read the full article here. It is worth your time, whether you are in ministry or not.

Fifties Evangelism Today

2006-10-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

Our recent team discussions about the ineffectiveness of our modern approach has been hard. We are having to admit that sharing the Four Laws like we did in the fifties is not working as well.

Bill Bright got it right back then for his generation. It was incredible. Contextualized and spot on. Things have changed and if Dr. Bright were alive now I think he would in his modern pragmatic view cheer us on to recontextualize again to our current culture.

We took a straw poll on our team and the majority of our conversions in the recent past have been predominantly Catholic. They have the Judeo-Christian world view still intact to work from - similar to the college student of the fifties.

The obvious nut to crack here is how to communicate the Gospel in our postmodern setting. As a general rule our students are great at sharing the "laws", but as products of their postmodern world, parental upbringing, church background are horrible at making friends and initiating in everyday encounters with non-believers.

We are actually thinking of teaching our students on basic social skills. "How to make friends" When our student leaders saw this they laughed. But then said they would come because they wanted to see what the staff would actually teach. If we adopt some new postmodern method to communicate (contextualize) the Gospel, there is still the awkward step of faith to say something about God much less Jesus, particularly when no one is watching.

I think sharing Christ a heart issue. Sharing about Jesus must come from a full heart centered on the cross and its implications. Out of a full heart of Jesus flows a desire to share.

Moderns are asking now: How do you get people to live this way much less measure it. Or is this just another Modern way of thinking? Is tracking effectiveness and taking statistics a Modern way of doing things? Scripture is full of number keeping. Singularly to give God the glory.

What do you guys think? I can't wait to talk more on Friday in our field staff meeting to figure this out.

My NEW Favorite Moment of the Conference

2006-09-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

Wow, today was full of amazing speakers. I can't even begin to get it down on the blog. Check out Challies for full reports on the talks until I can gather my thoughts, post, and ask you guys lots of questions. I've have a lot of thoughts and lots of questions, especially for our staff team. Read up on Tim Kellers talk so we can talk when we get home.

So, now for my new favorite moment...

After dinner took a little longer than we thought, we were a few minute late getting to the session, so we ended up sitting way up on top. A few minutes after we sat down, I noticed someone else squeezing in a little late in the row in front of us. I looked over and sure enough it was CJ Mahaney. I know ... crazy :) Then a few minutes later Joshua Harris joined him. I feel so blessed that they sat in front of us because it gave us an opportunity after the session to thank them for all they've done to encourage us in our walks with the Lord.

CJ's book, Living the Cross-Centered Life has had a profound impact on my life. DJ and I were able to tell CJ and encourage him with how much we have used the book in our movement. We had a great little conversation with him. It's funny because I've read his book twice and check his wife & daughters blog so I feel like I'm a friend of the family or something.

Anyway, I'm sure CJ wouldn't want me gushing over this because he's just a normal guy, but it really meant a lot of me to get to share those things with him.

Tomorrow we have the last session with Piper talking on Joy, so it should be a great way to finish the conference. More when we get home. Here's a picture from the top:

ps - we sat right up front for Driscoll today, here's a pic of that:

Desiring God National Conference

2006-09-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

DJ and I along with Mer and Alex are in Minneapolis for the Desiring God National Conference which is on The Supremacy of Christ in the Post Modern World.

I forgot to bring my camera cord, so these are pictures off DJ’s phone - sorry for the low quality. I’m really tired after flying out here and an amazing night meeting with the Lord, so I’ll keep this short.

My top 3 things from my first night at the Desiring God Conference:

1. Christ-centered, God exalting worship! Every song we sung tonight was focused on Jesus and the cross. Worship was so easy because the words were an overflow from my heart and I didn’t have to translate them into worship while I was singing. (That’s another post for another day) Here’s the songs we sung: In Christ Alone, A Mighty fortress is our God, Doxology, Jesus Thank You, and one more I can’t remember. I love it!

2. A message that lifted my heart to Christ. An overview of Hebrews and how it exalts Christ as Supreme. Then he challenged us that this is the Jesus we are to preach no matter what context or setting we do it in. He highlighted a picture of Christ as already winning the battle and standing on the neck of the enemy, it was such a great reminder. We were reminded that the time we are in now is just the enemies last ditch efforts and attempts but he won't prevail. WOW, it made me love Jesus more!!! After the conference all the talks will be up on-line for free ... I’ll link to it so you can listen.

3. Highlight of the night - a panel discussion lead by Justin Taylor between Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper (that’s the picture above). It was funny, entertaining, deep, profound, and so encouraging to my faith and ministry. My favorite part was when Justin Taylor asked the following question:

“Mark, you are all about being part of our culture, you listen to music, attend movies, go to Comedy clubs.

John, you don’t do any of that.

Mark, How do you stay faithful?

John, How do you stay relevant?”

Isn’t that the best question for these two guys! I couldn’t have asked a better question myself. I feel like I go back and forth between how to remain faithful and pure and still “be in the world” in order to share the gospel. It’s a tricky balance.

Challies is live blogging the conference so I’ll let you check it out his blog and read the full answer because I’m sure I can’t do it justice.

So there you go - I honestly can’t wait for tomorrow but more importantly I can’t wait to meet with Jesus and thank Him for the cross and worship Him as LORD! I’m guessing that is what they want most of all from the conference, so good job Desiring God!

This gets me excited

2006-09-21T05:27:00.000-07:00

Article: New Missions Generation

2006-09-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Troops. I came across this article in Christianity Today online about college students and missions. What I found interesting is the observation that young folks these days today like the aspect of social justice....but often leave out the Gospel.

Unfortunately, many students today exhibit theological confusion. "Too many college students are not convinced about the exclusive claims of Christ and the eternal lostness of humanity," says Terry Erickson, InterVarsity's director of evangelism. "Students today are more grace-oriented than truth-oriented." Erickson notes that young people on missions trips today may not be articulating the gospel's promise of eternal salvation through Christ's death on the Cross as clearly as they are demonstrating their concern for social justice and compassion for the poor.

Interesting.

Interview with an Intern

2006-09-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Q: So Rellis, you were one of the first people from Crusade I met as a freshman. Back then you were a student, then you came back from over seas as an intern on campus and you are soon to be "staffed" (sounds like a bad word huh?). Now that you are soon to be staffed, can you tell me why you like campus ministry so much?

A: College is a time of transition, change, and growth for everyone. For some, this process is slower than for others. Many students are living on their own for the first time and most are faced with opportunities they've never had before. College students typically also have goals for their future and are motivated to reach these goals. Investing in the lives of college students now really does have the potential to influence the world for Christ in the future. Students are challenged to question their beliefs and look inside for the answers. We know that if we truly look inside ourselves, we are not going to find the answers. We do find the problem, however- sin. I want to be a part of helping students really see this and realize their need for a Savior. My experience with Campus Ministry is that we are very focused on evangelism and getting the Gospel to lost students, here at Cal Poly and around the world. It is exciting to be used by God to help fulfill the Great Commission and it is when I am a part of ministry that I learn the most about God and myself. That's kind of a long answer, so in short: I like campus ministry because of the abundance of opportunities to share the Gospel, multiply my faith into other people, and cast vision for being part of God's global harvest.

Q: Tell me about your current ministry responsibilities with Campus Crusade for Christ?

A: I am currently an intern with Campus Crusade, just accepted to be full time staff after winter training. Since we're still in our summer break, I'll base my answer on my responsibilities during the last academic year and summer project.

I'll start with a list:

I co-lead a Target Area ministry in one of the residence halls with another new staff member

I co-lead a Target Area ministry in the business college with a student

I oversaw the campus finances

I helped with following up freshmen contacts from some of our summer outreaches to freshmen

I helped with campus administration for our ministry

I co-lead the summer project team to Central Asia this summer

This next academic year I will be adding "Partnership Coordinator" to my responsibilities

Is that what you meant?

If not, as new staff my main focus is evangelism, especially reaching out to freshmen. This focus doesn't really change much, but as I am discipling more girls, evangelism will eventually become more part of discipleship and not as much on my own.

Q: In what ways have you seen God's grace in the ministry at Cal Poly Pomona?

A: The example that comes to mind first is my target area in one of the residence halls on campus. The hall I was leading in has the reputation for being the party dorm and having students who are interested in trying out everything they couldn't do in high school. At the beginning of the year, I was pretty intimidated by the reputation of my target area. However, despite my fear in trying to reach this area on campus, God worked in mighty ways. Our first study had one girl who was having a VERY difficult time adjusting to university life. By the end of our first time together, my co-leader and I thought that she would never come back... but she did, and God has been faithful to show her His grace throughout the year. God also continued to move in the hearts of other girls in our target area and by the end of the school year, we had five girls coming consistently, seven had been through basic follow up (making sure they understand assurance of salvation, grace, growth, etc), and two of them went on summer projects with Campus Crusade. All of this was by the grace of God and I was blessed to be a part of God's work in these girls' lives first-hand.

Q: What are you personally hoping that God will do at Cal Poly this upcoming year(s)?

A: I am praying and trusting God to deepen the relationships the students have with each other and with Him, through doing ministry together, studying the word, and taking steps of faith together. I believe that God will use this to reach out to the freshmen class in a big way. I pray that students will see that the purpose of campus ministry is really turning LOST students into Christ-centered laborers which can be done in a multitude of ways, all of which are dependent on God for results.

Q: Now... you spent the summer overseas sharing the gospel with college students. Where did you go? And what was that like?

A: I went to a country in Central Asia that was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Although it was my third trip to the city in which we ministered, the summer was still different than I expected and challenging. I was on a team with 5 students, 4 staff, and 3 staff kids. No one except myself had previously been to the city or spoke the language. We were in a third-world country, but stayed in one of the 4 big cities in not third-world conditions. Living in another country for any period of time provides numerous opportunities to learn about God and to trust in Him. When you all of your usual coping mechanisms for stress are stripped away, you HAVE to trust in God to give you strength and motivation to continue. I still love the city and country we were in. I love my team. And I learned a lot about myself and God's faithfulness.

Q: Do you think it is important for college students to experience that kind of cross cultural ministry?

A: Absolutely. I think you can only learn so much about other cultures and people from books, movies, news, and other sources. But, until you have been in another country, doing ministry cross culturally, you can't really understand that part of God. Through each people group that I interact with, I am able to see more of God. The diversity that He created is incredible and the ways He appears in different cultures is so amazing. It's almost indescribable. Also, many students only understand the Great Commission in words, but they haven't made the heart connection yet. By experiencing ministry internationally and cross-culturally, I have seen many students first-hand gain a greater understanding of what it means to reach the lost people of the world with the Gospel.

Q: What do you think affects students the most in an overseas project?

A: Being away from everything and everyone they know, except God. This causes students to rely on Him completely and they realize that He is the only one in which they should be finding comfort anyway. The relationships with other students around the world also greatly affects students. Seeing the similarities of students around the world is eye-opening for many and heart-breaking for many. University students around the world share many struggles and dreams, but all need the Gospel in order to understand their purpose in life.

Q: Do you work closely with your staff team and student leaders? What do you like most about working with staffers and student leaders?

A: I am extremely privileged to work closely with my staff team and the student leaders on our campus. In fact, I have even chosen to live with one CORE student leader and four target area leaders. Our staff team is like a family, but not the dysfunctional kind that no one wants to spend time with. :) We share the Gospel together, do devotionals together, coach students together, launch movements together, and live relatively near each other. One of my favorite parts of being an intern at Cal Poly is the relationships I have with my staff team and the students. I am blessed to be working alongside such incredible people from whom I learn every day as we trust God to use us to share the Gospel with a lost and dying generation of apathetic college students.

Q: As you look to another Fall quarter what are major challenges that face the progress of Crusade ministry in "building spiritual movements everywhere, so everybody knows someone who truly follows Jesus"?

A: Looking at the ministry, what we do, and who we are, I think it is easy to get caught up in the relationships that we build as a result of doing ministry together. It is natural to "stick together" in trying situations and it is a lot easier to hang out with believers all the time rather than pouring out your life into non-believers. The problem with this is that as Christians, we tend to gravitate towards other believers becoming inward focused. When we spend all of our time doing activities (spiritual or not) with other believers, we are not providing opportunities to develop relationships with the people who still need to know Jesus. What we constantly need to do is stay focused on God and His glory as we LOOK outward and REACH outward to the non-believers surrounding us.

The Gospel as Relevant and Offensive?

2006-08-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Do you have ministry heroes? People who lift up Jesus in a powerful, life changing and biblical ways? Some of my ministry heroes are the organizers for the 2006 Together for the Gospel Conference. These are four ministry leaders from different church and denominations who want to encourage other ministry leaders to have a gospel-focused ministry.

One of them, Mark Dever, a pastor of a small but influencial church in Washington DC has posted a piece about evangelism at the Together for the Gospel blog. Its about being relevant with the gospel while understanding that relevant doesn't always mean the gospel isn't offensive at times

Here is a snippet of the post here.

When you share the Gospel, think carefully about the language you use. One of the best conversations I can remember having about evangelism was with a secular Jewish friend of mine. I was to give talks soon on a college campus about evangelism. And I decided to ask my friend about it. We’ll call him “Michael.” (In fact, that was his name!) “So Michael,” I said, “have you ever been evangelized?” “What’s that?” he asked. “You know,” I said, “when someone who is a Christian starts talking to you about God and Jesus and asking if you’re saved.” “Oh, that!” he said. “Yeah, I guess I have been.” Anyway, Michael and I got into a long and good conversation. Now, the truth is that I had evangelized Michael a number of times before then, but he thought those were conversations. As we talked about it, he thought evangelism was something that someone did to him. And he didn’t understand it very well.

I realized in talking with him that I couldn’t take the meaning of words for granted. “God”, “prayer”, “heaven”, “good”, “moral”, “judge”, “sin” were all words which I realized I had not done a good job defining. I could have misunderstood what Michael thought if I had simply gone through a quick, persuasive sales presentation and gotten him to say “Yes!” He would have been saying “yes” to much that he didn’t understand....

One part of clarity sometimes missed by earnest evangelists, however, is the willingness to offend. Clarity with the claims of Christ certainly will include the translation of the Gospel into words that our hearer understands, but it doesn’t necessarily mean translating it into words that our hearer will like. Too often advocates of relevant evangelism verge over into being advocates of irrelevant non-evangelism. A gospel which in no way offends the sinner has not been understood. Look at Peter at Pentecost in Acts 2. He wanted to be relevant. But that relevance gave his words more bite, not less. How did Peter witness to those he wished to see saved? He said to them, among other things, “let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ,” (Acts 2:36).

Relevant? Yes. Pleasing? No. Clear? Undoubtedly.

Be clear about the fact of sin (Isa. 59:1-2; Hab. 1:13; Rom. 3:22-23; 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5; I John 1:5-6). Be clear about the meaning of the cross (Matt. 26:28; Gal. 3:10-13; I Tim. 1:15; I Peter 2:24; 3:18). Be clear about our need to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ (Matt. 11:28-30; Mark 1:15; 8:34; John 1:12; 3:16; 6:37; Acts 20:21). What would it mean to evangelize without being clear about what the Bible says about these issues?

You can read the entire post on the T4G Blog. What do you guys think?

Adorning the gospel.

2006-08-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Caroline Mahaney's book, "Feminine Appeal". Parts of this post are from her chapter, "Transformed by Titus 2." I was struck by her assessment that, "The commands found in Titus 2 have been given to us for the all-important reason that transcends time and culture. The reson is the gospel of Jesus Christ."

This chapter does not just address women, it addresses older men, younger men, older women, younger women, and slaves (anyone under authority). I'm pretty sure that covers all of us! Each of us have instructions given directly to us about how to live out our lives. Listen to the purpose the passage gives for these clear distinctions and commands:

vs. 5 "... so that the word of God might not be reviled" vs. 8 "... so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. vs. 10 "... so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior

The way we live our lives, in accordance with our God given roles, is so the Gospel will be proclaimed to those around us. By living these out, we can adorn the gospel like a queen does her crown or jewels. I don't just love my husband because it's "a good thing to do" or "because God tells me to." I love my husband because in doing that I can "adorn" or show-off the gospel and in my actions show how the gospel has changed my life.

When I don't follow the commands in Titus 2:10 to submit to those in authority over me, "in everything" and be "well-pleasing, not argumentative" I'm not adorning the gospel as I should. What a challenge for my life! Oh that I would adorn the gospel well and follow the commands the Lord has set before me do so that can be true of my life.

After reading the "Cross-Centered Life" by CJ Mahaney, I've discovered that the Gospel is the motivation for all that I do in the Christian life. It's why I'm on staff with Campus Crusade down to why I desire to bless and not curse someone who cuts me off on the 10 freeway. What would it look like if I walked slowly enough to consider the gospel in all the decisions I make and sentences I speak through out each day?

Read Titus 2 and see what roles God has laid out for you to showcase His Gospel to the world!

Moving from Seeker-Sensitive to Missional

2006-08-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

My wife and I just started reading a book by Mark Driscoll called "Radical Reformission," and it has been great so far. One of the main themes of the book is becoming a "missional" person, which is a catchy term that is being thrown around emerging church circles, and it is a mindset that I am convinced every Christian needs to have. It also articulates well what we desire our students to be in their movements of Campus Crusade for Christ (and how I want to be!).

Let me explain what being a missional movement/church/Christian means by contrasting it with being a seeker-sensitive movement/church. The seeker-sensitive model is one that most people are probably very familiar with, and has been championed by very influential churches like Willow Creek. The model can be said to work like a business model, seeking to offer commodities to the community the church is in. So the model looks to the needs to the community and sets up programs in order to draw in those from the community. You offer something that the community needs and then hopefully once you have people in your church (or movement) then you can tell them about Jesus. So it is a drawing people into your group or church in order to get the gospel to them. One of the problems with this model is that often people complain of the "dumbing-down" of services and events in order to reach non-believers. Pragmatism is a big thing in the seeker-sensitive model.

Another thing the model brings about is a mentality that evangelism is an event-focused thing, namely it is driven by specific one-time (or possibly more) events where the gospel is shared, usually at the end of the presentation. Of course, I am over-generalizing what it means to be seeker-sensitive, but hopefully this gives an outline of the basics of the model.

On the other hand, being a missional movement/Christian operates on assumption that every believer is primarily called to be a "missionary" to all the people they commonly come in contact with day by day. The model says that believers already have their own social-networks where they interact with non-believers all the time; places like clubs on campus or classes or community groups or local government or sports teams. People in missional models are then told that they are God's agents to reach other people and tell them about Christ. They are then encouraged to "be a missionary" to the people that they are around everyday; that is, get to know them, find out what they are like. What drives them? What is there worldview? What do they think about religion? About Jesus? And then as you operate like a God's missionary to these people you have opportunities to share Jesus with them.

Meetings and church services then are focused on feeding Christians, not on reaching non-believers. Christians are fed and then sent out to reach people where they already are, not bring people to the church service (or to the weekly meeting) primarily. Instead of the seeker-sensitive model of bringing people in, you are sending people out.

I find that the missional model is one that is easily found in the Scriptures. In Acts you see believers coming together to fellowship, hear teaching of the Word, break bread together, and the like (Acts 2:42), which is what their churches were. And then those believers would scatter and go and tell people about Jesus. It is not that non-believers were never amongst them, there were, but the meetings and services were not focused primarily on reaching the non-believers in the group and making them happy. They were focused on building up the believers SO THAT they could effectively reach people where the most non-believers naturally are, the world.

This is what I really long for in my own life and in the lives of our students on campus (and the churches around us). Our students so often get stuck in the mindset that evangelism is only done at events once a quarter, or is only done from 12-1pm when we go out with surveys. Once the event is done, they turn off "being a missionary" and don't think about all the amazing opportunities to reach people where they are. We spend so much energy to get people to our events (which isn't bad, I love organized, relevant outreaches) when all along there are non-believers around us if we would just get to know them and share Jesus with them.

I think "being missional" needs to really be taught to believers today. Too often we are caught up in our Christian cultures of church and Crusade movements with Christian music and Christian friends and Christian jewelry that we aren't seeing the tons of chances to reach lost people around us. This is so convicting for myself as well, because I am realizing that I need to see the people in our neighborhood as the lost people God has called me to reach. I have to become missional myself as well!

I pray these distinctions of seeker-sensitive vs. missional can help you in your own church/movement and your personal life. I hope to really engage our students with this stuff this coming year myself.

To check out a video of Mark Driscoll talking about this topic, click on this link:

http://www.desiringgod.org/media/video/2006_National/national2006_driscoll_interview8.mov

Faith that Embraces Science

2006-08-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

“A fact established is as sacred a truth revealed”- Arthur Custance
“Since all truth points to Him, all truth is sacred”- RC Sproul

I agree with these two statements whole-heartedly. The Christian should pursue scientific discovery so that the natural laws may be understood for it’s true purpose, namely the purpose for which God designed it. When the unregenerate discovers something, he cannot explain it for it’s true purpose. He can explain what it is and maybe what it does he but cannot put in the context of God’s plan for creation. The Christian can and therefore should because when he does, then I believe we will grow in our appreciation for what God has created because we understand it in light of what God designed it for. And ultimately the more we understand the complexity of how and why God designed the universe (and all it’s parts) , the more beautiful it will become. The more beautiful the universe is to us, the more beauty and magnificence we ascribe to it’s creator. The more magnificent God is to us the more we give glory to Him.

To be sure, we cannot take all ‘discovery’ as truth. But I have no doubt that God has given us minds to understand to a large extent his creation that we may behold his handiwork and give glory to Him. So I believe science has uncovered things that are truly the way God designed them. These are facts that cannot be ascertained from scripture but which scripture supports as true. In fact, I believe it is only when these discoveries are understood in light of scripture that these discoveries can be truly understood and it is when scripture contradicts these discoveries (say evolution) can we be sure the human mind has errored in its search for truth. But, turning this around I wonder if until we begin to apply to our theology what science has determined to be true (in so far as it does not contradict scripture) deeper meanings of certain passages and some fundamental doctrines of our faith will remain shrouded in mystery. Not that we can’t believe them, we should! because it’s revealed, but our understanding of it will remain limited.

For example: We can have greater appreciation for the virgin birth because we may understand it not as a mere concoction of God at the last moment, but as a process he instituted in Adam and Eve for redemption from the beginning. Because science has discovered the process of embryology and scripture says he was born of a virgin we know that Jesus was born of an ovum without sperm. So we see that God worked within his natural law and indeed created his natural law for this very purpose of His entrance into earth and time. By separating Adam and Eve and consequently their respective seed he could be born a man (essential for our redemption) by the woman’s seed and escape the sin nature (essential for our redemption) from the man’s seed. So we see the two realms of science and special revelation shedding light on themselves.

So then, since things become more beautiful the better we understand them, and since science can help us uncover truths that point towards God and his Holiness, then the more we understand the universe by embracing science the more beautiful God is to us. And so if we fail to understand the truths of science through the lenses of our faith (and arguably but maybe to a lesser extent truths of faith through the lens of science), we will fail to give God the most glory because we will not behold fuller beauty as we retain a limited understanding of all that he has created and revealed.

What's the difference?

2006-08-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

I've been rolling this around in my head for the last few weeks and I decided to do a post on it. As the campus ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, we have always had the mission statement, "Turning Lost Students into Christ-Centered Laborers." All of us know this and use this statement to raise support, guide our schedules, lead our SP Processs, and as our reason for joining staff.

At our staff conference Steve Douglas our President unveiled our new "focus." I call it that because I'm not sure if it's a new mission statement for the whole of Campus Crusade, or just a new vision that he has for us. I've asked other staff and I've gotten a range of answers so for now, we'll call it a new "focus". The new statement goes like this, "Building spiritual movements everywhere, so everybody knows someone who truly follows Jesus."

My question is what does this mean for the campus ministry? Does this new statement replace the old, come along side it, or are they the same? Should our ministries and priorities change and be lead by building spiritual movements or was that always part of turning lost students into Christ-centered laborers?

So as I've thought about this, my first step has been to ask the post's title question - What's the difference? Are these statements the same or do they have major differences. Here's what I have so far:

Christ-Centered Laborers

Evangelism & Discipleship are key (lost, turning, laborers)
Student Specific
Talks of Lost students
Goal: Christ-centered laborers
Action: going to lost students to see them "turn"

Spiritual Movements

Movements are key (building movements)
Wider audience - Non specific (CCC as a whole)
Talks of lost students and students who follow Jesus
Goal: Movements Everywhere
Action: finding students who will build spiritual movements

At this point, this is as far as I have gotten ... this is where you come in. I have a few questions for my fellow bloggers and our readers.

Do you see other similarities or differences that I have missed?
Can you do both and be effective or are they too different?
What changes would you see needing to happen if we focused on building spiritual movements?
Which one motivates you more?

This post is just a start, I'll try to answer these questions as we go too! Looking forward to hearing from you ...

Why I Love the Cal-Poly Staff

2006-07-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not on staff with CCC. I'm not called to staff on CCC. But I cherish precious friendships with people who are (and were) on staff on my campus. The Staff at Cal-Poly Pomona have had some of the greatest impact on my life than any other group of individuals I know.

I do not know much about staff on the regional or national scene. While, I've known some through projects and whatnot I really can only speak for those staff persons who have graced Cal-Poly Pomona. Here is what has impacted me the most about the character and calling of my Staff friends at Cal-Poly.

Incarnational ministry: The very fact that I can be good friends with staffers as a student shows the level commitment and joy the staff take in ministry on campus. It blows my mind to hear some people on staff who join Crusade as a step to figure out what they really want to do. They just wanted to try out college ministry. Huh? Did God call you to campus evangelism or to contemplate your navel? On the contrary, the staff I have had the joy to work with have live out a strong sense of calling in their ministry. It is a joy to be a student partnering with such people for the gospel.

Gospel Orientation: Cal-Poly staffers loved the gospel. They love talking about victories of the gospel in sharing encounters. They also share stories of difficulty and trial in witnessing. They love talking about movements of God in the development of young believers. They love talking about Jesus, the Bible and the gospel. In their free time they dream up new ways to challenge students not to waste their lives in a life apart from Christ. They love what they do, even though it is often difficult and fast paced at times. They love the gospel.

Patient Coaching: Staffers take great risk and care in deploying new leaders. Fresh student leaders might do a good job, others leave scraps for the staff to patiently sweep up, others explode into a thousand pieces under the pressure of ministry leaving the Staff to solve, pick up, and finish the task themselves. Whatever the outcome of these fledgling student leaders first attempt at flight the staff are ever so patient to do whatever is necessary to keep the movement going. I'm sure i left a lot of scaps in the things I have lead. So, I am so thankful for the humility and patiences in Staff people to have people like ME participate in leadership.

Loving Correction: Student leadership is often messy. Sometimes there is pride, personality issues, moral problems. Staff lovingly must do the hard thing: confront issue. Often this is confronting a leader about (dare i say?) sin. That method of lovingly calling out sin issues is a very un-hip method today. But is it is necessary for the sake of the movement, ministry, and individual to be accountable. Confronting sin issues is indeed loving. I am so grateful that staff so often do the hard part of love in correcting others and myself. No doubt, loving correction does not always meet a receptive heart or a willingness to confess and repent. but i have seen it change people dramatically and restore people who were heading down terrible directions. I admire staffers bravery in this regard.

There are more points I could add but these four are the most impactful on me. Imagine these qualities being lived out by servant leadership in the context of a lost and dying secular campus. These Staff shed so much grace in their ministry to those around them. What a privilege it was to minister with them.

Why I Love Campus Crusade for Christ at Cal-Poly

2006-07-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

As a former lowly student I've been involved with Campus Crusade for Christ movement at Cal-Poly Pomona for just under 5 years. I've done leadership stuff for a little over 4 years. I've been under 3 different campus directors. I've seen campus staff come and go, and the student leadership team shrink and grow. I've seen the movement experience various sizes and levels of influence on campus. I've seen multiple movements launched on this highly diverse campus. I've seen leaders groomed from unlikely students, and seen many with great potential fall to the fringes and waste their last college years.

As I look towards seminary in the fall and the possibility of a two year mission project I look back at over the years of campus ministry as a student and have many things that I'm grateful for. There are some things that have lodged into my heart that, I believe, will forever mark me and others for the glory of God.

Things that have a lasting impact on me and others

Biblical Foundations for Life and Ministry: I came to campus as a fairly young believer. I was given some critical foundations shown from the Bible and lived out in life. Bible study, interpretation, memorization, prayer, basic soteriology, the Holy Spirit, evangelism, spiritual multiplication. I learned how I can share my faith, my testimony, and follow up with a new believer, lead Christians to reach a target area with the gospel. I was coached on how to lead a bible studies for non-believers, believers, for leaders and those being groomed for leadership. I was convinced with Scripture the biblical principles of spiritual multiplication, "Win Build Send", and Crusade's mission to turn lost students into Christ centered laborers.

Resolved to Reach the Lost. I was constantly reminded of the plight of my campus, the incredible gift entrusted to me, and the perspective of eternity. I was in a campus full of lost people who need to be told about Jesus. Before me was put the biblical foundations of responsibility, accountability, and the command to share and live the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. Again and again the main issue was, "how can we share Christ those who do not know Jesus?" This kept everyone on track.

Entrust the Ministry to Others. The principle of 2 Timothy 2:2 was implanted in me early on. And it has been a reality I've seen lived out on campus for 5 years. The Staff were constantly praying and looking for laborers to be raised up to reach the campus --and teaching us to do the same. Faith and humility is required to step out to invest in and entrust vital aspects of ministry in the hands of young leaders. Sometimes, they would take steps of faith even before anyone emerged capable of leading. I learned humility, because we cannot reach the campus by our own gifts or effort, we need more laborers. Faith, because God would raise laborers and there was no guarantee that those they were investing in would be able to lead when the time comes.

Whatever it takes to be Faithful! Lastly, there was a pervasive desire to do whatever it takes to be faithful to what God has called us to on campus. Success is measured in hundreds of ways. But the only measure of success that seems biblical and leaves a lasting impression on me is that of faithfulness to a calling. Staff in particular live out a joy and passion to their calling in campus ministry. I have learned to take this very seriously. Numbers, and other success criteria may be high or low, but what matters most is, "are we trusting God with what he has given us?"

But not everything sticks. Here are some things that got a lot of attention but didn't seem to have a lasting, transforming affect on campus or my life.

Things that fell by the wayside: Fad flavor of the day. (if you are not on Staff you might not know what i'm talking about)

Most fads I was involved in were things that are stated in fresh ways and reconstruct or redefines issues BUT fail to be a biblical foundation you can build on.

The most impactful people in my life were passionate enough to not live with "boundaries", yet they were humble enough to realize (or be told about) their own limitations. Staff people who lived a life of incarnational witness had the most impact on me not those with a "healthy" distinction between ministry and life. Those who had ministry as the love and labor of their lives convinced me that ministry is that important. In my ministry days I was engulfed in Wild at Heart fad in its hay day. If anyone judged the success of a book or set of teachings by the level of enthusiasm it received from student leaders Wild at Heart would have to be at top in my campus. But years later, wounds did not define our problems, nor did initiation into manhood, or that I was not wild at heart "like Jesus was", or take risks "like God did". Nor will I ever use Last of the Mohicians as a illustration of the Trinity with a new believer. Love languages, gift inventories, or Kiersey/Myers Briggs temperaments will not be in my ministry toolbox on the mission field. BTW If there is anyone who knows that system in and out i do! And for you INTJs probably don't believe me just ask around.

In my day there was the Cloudisms, Eldredgisms, Briggisms. Maybe the future fads are McMannusism, CampusChurchism, OrganicChurchism. Only time will tell. If future fads are not foundational and biblical, they will not transform the future trajectory of anyone no matter how interesting or how much adrenal passion it gives your students now.

Despite the fads, Crusade has done immeasurable good in the life and faith of this former lowly student. May God bless you, and may you all continue to turn lost students into Christ centered laborers.

Valuable Post on Conversions

2006-07-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

I thought this post by Mark Dever on "Should Evangelists Question Professions of Faith?" on the Together for the Gospel Blog would be pretty valuable for people like me and others on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, in that we long with all our hearts to see true conversions and people streaming into the kingdom. May this help us to examine ourselves and those in our movements and churches.

"Sometimes I get the feeling that people think there's something wrong with questioning the reality of a profession of faith. It's legalistic, or judging, or holier than thou. Or something.

But if evangelists want to see lost sinners saved, and if evangelists know that we sinners can deceive ourselves, then it's not surprising that we want to try to make sure (with all appropriate qualifications about our limitedness) that conversions professed are conversions possessed.

Or is it just sour-faced theologians who think about such things? Are preachers who think about such things unevangelistic? Here's what one preacher said, reflecting on Jesus' parable of the sower and the soils. “There are so many stony ground hearers, who receive the Word with joy, that I have determined to suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits. I cannot believe they are converts until I see fruit brought back; it will never do a sincere soul any harm.”

Does such a determination seem uncharitable or unevangelistic? What preacher would say such a thing? That was George Whitefield (as cited by Carey Hardy, “Just as I am” in John MacArthur, ed., Fool’s Gold, [2005], pp. 136-137). I don't think George Whitefield was unevangelistic for wanting to know a tree by its fruit, and neither are we today. In fact, I think such a concern would actually help our churches to do more real evangelism.

And besides, as Whitefield says, such caution "will never do a sincere soul any harm."

What should we do? Encourage the new believer in all things good. Remind them of the gospel. After some appropriate time (which would vary much from case to case) they should be baptized and join a church. They should regularly hear the preaching of the Word, commune, fellowship, pray and obey the Word. They should be building relationships in order to do that. And they should be told to hope in Christ alone for their salvation. Our desire is to find every professor getting safely home to heaven.

And then what about counting converts? The final tally will be made by God in due time. And that's the only tally that matters."

The Danger of Falling in Love with the "Love" of God

2006-07-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

There’s something about being engaged with lost people and sharing the gospel with them that really opens your eyes to the lies that Satan has thrown out there “to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. Being on our short missions trip this summer has brought heightened awareness of what lost people think, and really makes me concerned about how we share the gospel.

The beginning of the “4 Spiritual Laws” (a tool that we have used in Campus Crusade for Christ for decades) starts with the first Law that “God loves you and created you to know him personally”, or some versions say “God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.” When this was written 40-something years ago I think it really probably hit lost people in a great way. But today I am realizing that the gospel of the God of love has been so watered down, in my opinion, that telling that to people hardly does any spiritual good. I think today the majority of lost people (and Christians!) have heard that so much that they think things like, “Darn right he loves me! Why wouldn’t he? I am a good person.” Now I don’t think we need to not tell people that God loves them, I just think we need to get to a biblical definition of God’s love, and we need to teach out disciples and churches how to properly share the love of God. Let me explain.

Our culture today is so saturated with self-esteem that we are constantly told from day one in school that we are “special.” We are told how marvelous we are and that all real problems come from not believing that we are good and have good to give. Therefore, when the Christian enters in and says that we are loved by God it isn’t hard for the person to believe. But step in and tell the person that they are sinful and under God’s wrath and you have a whole ‘nother story!

We did an outreach the other day where we had huge signs on the beach that said “Confessional” and we stayed around the signs and talked to people. We didn’t want people to come to confess to us (which didn’t happen once by the way) but we were confessing to them our sin and the ways we have not represented Jesus well to the world. It was a humbling time, but the hope was to humbly find ways to get into the gospel and the real message of Jesus with people, that we are all sinners in desperate need of a wonderful Savior. As I was standing at the sign an older man approached me and asked, “You are not one of those narrow-minded, judgmental Christians are you?” I didn’t quite know how to respond, but decided to go at it from the point of the outreach saying that we were first telling people ways we have not showed Jesus to the world and have sinned. He liked that, and proceeded to tell me how all I have to do is to tell the message that “God is love.” I asked him what he meant, and he went on to tell me about how he is a homosexual Episcopalian with his partner at the beach and their adopted daughter. He is a weekly and active church-goer, and loves being a part of his “Gay and Lesbian church group.”

I struggled with where to go with him, but decided to tell him that I was concerned with telling people about God’s great love as well, but that I was very concerned with the words of Jesus about hell, a place of gnashing of teeth and eternal fire and conscious torment. I told him that I didn’t want anyone to end up their. In his pride the man side-stepped that point, telling me that God knows our hearts and we can’t judge anyone, and all we need to do is tell people about the love of God.

As the man walked away after a bit more conversation, my heart sank and was incredibly sad. The man was so proud and unwilling to admit his sin, and had only heard from his church that “God is love” and accepts everyone. He has heard a false gospel, a very incomplete gospel, and one that will send him to hell.

So as I processed the conversation some more I started to realize some very hard things about our Christian culture as well. I hear so much in churches about how loving God is, and when people tell their testimonies they focus so much on that, and so little on the greatness of God that he forgave our unbelievable sin. I fear that many of us are in love with the “love” of God. If we are, and we are not living in the truth that we are desperate sinners in need of a Savior, that we deserve only wrath and punishment because of our sin, then we do not know Jesus for who he is, and we do not know ourselves.

We are gravely mistaken if we think God is JUST love. God is also holy, perfect, and righteous in every way. Because of his great character he hates sin. Psalm 5:5 goes so far as to say that God “hates all evildoers.” God’s wrath burns against all sin, including the sin of Christians.

In a recent post online, John Piper wrote in his article titled “Defending My Father’s Wrath”:

“There are cultural forces at work inside and outside the church that make me eager to defend my Father’s wrath against me before I was adopted... My destiny was to endure “flaming fire” and “vengeance on those . . . who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus . . . [and who] suffer the punishment of eternal destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). I was not a son of God. God was not my Father. He was my judge and executioner. I was a “son of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). I was dead in trespasses and sins. And the sentence of my Judge was clear and terrifying: “Because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

There was only one hope for me—that the infinite wisdom of God might make a way for the love of God to satisfy the wrath of God so that I might become a son of God.”

I am learning that I need to make this clearer to lost people when I share with them (with tears!), and that I need to teach people to share the gospel by highlighting our terrible sin and God’s terrible wrath. I need to share the love of God as from Romans 5:8;

“...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still SINNERS, Christ died for us.”

God’s love is most clearly displayed in that when we deserved wrath, when we hated God, when we were sinners, he sent Jesus to die FOR us. Unbelievable! This is the great news of God’s love! And now as those in Christ, all his wrath against our sin and hatred of it is absorbed by Christ, and we get nothing but mercy. We must tell people that, even though God loves you in a measure, he hates your sin and will punish you. This is how we must share with the lost, this is how I must share with them! Oh God help us to see your love as it really is, and help us to share about your terrible wrath, that your Son on the Cross would be seen as beautiful as he really is!

Not Sharing the Gospel with Tears

2006-06-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

Alisha and I have been in Santa Monica on a Campus Crusade summer project for about 2 weeks now. For those of you not familiar with Crusade summer projects, we spend a lot of time training students, a lot of time helping them love Christ more, and a lot of time sharing the gospel. We do a lot of what is called "ministry-mode" evangelism, which is your basic no-previous-relationship, cold-turkey evangelism, where we go up to people with surveys that lead into the gospel, or we just try talking to people in a real way. Our hope is that students would leave the summer well trained in how to reach their campuses for Christ, with the heart and love for Jesus needed to do it.

But a few things have struck me deeply as we have gone sharing in Santa Monica. Several people (non-believers) we have shared with have mentioned how other believers they know try to "shove" the gospel down their throat, or have looked down on them in condescending ways, or have just told them they are sinners and are going to hell. You hear things like this a lot when you share your faith a lot, and when you really ask people what they think of Christians, but Santa Monica has raised it to a new level.

Now, first let me say a couple things before I get to my main point. I am more willing to trust that my Christian brothers and sisters who go out sharing their faith do it with the best of intentions and heart, and less willing to trust these non-believers who tell me how Christians talk to them. I want to believe the best in my family who love Jesus. So I take what lost people say with a grain of salt, knowing all to well my own sinfulness and shortcomings in communicating the gospel well.

Second, the answer is not NOT telling people they are going to hell. I have heard people say that the reason people run away from Christians and don't stick around to hear about our great God is because we tell them they are going to hell. Well let me say that if you DON'T tell people that apart from Christ providing the forgiveness for their sin, apart from trusting and treasuring him, they will go to hell justly as punishment for their rebellion against God, then you are NOT sharing the gospel. There is NO gospel without the preaching of hell. I could take time to justify this biblically, but I think you would all agree that if we do not tell people the horrible consequences of rejecting God in our actions and hearts daily then we are not sharing with them the true gospel of the good news of Christ.

But my main point is that the problem seems to come not in telling people they are going to hell, but not saying it with tears. Let me explain what I mean. As I have approached people to share the gospel and asked them questions about Christ and found out what their worldview is and then shared Jesus with them, I have been struck that people have been super receptive. I am way real about sin, in fact I am about as bible-thumping as you can get. But these non-believers keep telling me that if more Christians were like us they would listen more. No one has turned and trusted Jesus with me yet, but they have listened to the whole message. (we did have one guy accept Christ with another couple, praise God!) I am not sharing a different gospel, I am being real about sin and hell, but I believe the LOVE and CARE that is shown to people is what is making the difference.

That is why I say we need to be people who share the gospel with tears, not pride. Pride gladly tells someone else they are going to hell for their sin; tears mourn that our sin is just as great as anyone elses, and that this person is defaming the glory of Christ and missing out on knowing Him. Pride doesn't care much for lost people, it is too much consumed with itself. Tears weep like Jesus did over those who are like sheep without a shepherd.

Far too often my heart is somewhat disengaged when I share my faith, but oh that this would change for all of us! Oh that we would draw near to the cross, where we see the true depth of our sin, and the true glory of Christ! Let us look to him, really talk to lost people about their wack worldviews, and become loving people who share about Jesus. Let us become people who with tears tell people they are going to hell because of their sin, but that salvation in Christ is the best news ever. Oh God draw us near to the cross that non-believers would see a greatly different love in us, and that they may give glory to our Father because of it!

If Jonathan Edwards Blogged

2006-06-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

It is pure speculation, but it is possible that if Jonathan Edwards were alive today, he would at least give blogging a try. I say this, in my limited knowledge of him, because he was a man who was an early adapter. He kept up with the latest discoveries in science, as well as read the most recent books and philosophers coming from Europe. Certainly being the prolific writer that he was and desiring to leave his mark on the intellectual world, he would have a difficult time resisting the opportunities afforded by the medium we know as the Blog.

So if he were alive and blogging today, what would be the principles he would blog by? I went back to his Resolutions to give us some clues:

1. He would have only said nice things about this parents.

#46. Resolved, never to allow the least measure of any fretting uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eve: and to be especially careful of it, with respect to any of our family.

2. He would seek to be kind when leaving comments on other blogs.

#58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity.

3. If he ever lost his temper or had crossed the line by ranting, he would at least catch it before going to bed at night.

#37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself: also at the end of every week, month and year.

4. He might participate in memes, but they would have always have a spiritual emphasis. He wouldn't use photoshop to make funny photos.

#61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc.

5. He wouldn’t visit Purgatorio on a Sunday.

#38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord's day.

6. The bulk of his blogging would be centered on the Scriptures.

#28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

7. He would never put his blog before spending time in serious prayer.

#29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

8. He would check his facts before bringing out an accusation.

#36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it.

9. There would be times he would see the need to correct error, and he would endeavor to do it nicely....except in certain cases.

#66. Resolved, that I will endeavor always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

10. Even then he would never completely blast someone, not even an Emergent pastor.

#69. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.

11. He wouldn’t be the perfect blogger, but he’d sure try.

#14. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

12. He might after a short time, he might consider closing down his blog forever, or at least close down the comments and remove himself from all blogrolls for fear of some "unlawful" connection that would lead someone to sin or bad theology.

#39. Resolved, never to do anything that I so much question the lawfulness of, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or no; except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

What is the Love of God?

2006-06-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

No single book of the bible gives such a comprehensive explanation of the gospel than Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In Chapter 1 & 2 Paul is making the case that everyone is under sin and under God’s judgement. In Chapter 2 Paul briefly address a particular objection to Paul’s line of argument.

Or do you presume on the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4

Apparently there were people in Paul’s day who presumed that since God is so immeasurably kind and patient (today people might just say, loving) that sin and judgement is not serious concern. How many spiritual non-Christians today believe that God is all-loving and all-forgiving regardless of faith in Christ? Most in my experience. In fact this kind of belief in the love of God keep many from understanding the Gospel. So many people believe in God’s love to the extent that they presume that sin, righteousness and judgement are not realities that they need saving from.

Today, I believe a Romans 2:4 view of God’s love dominates American spirituality. Some leaders of popular ministries and churches moving this way... Some leaders of the Emergent Church seem to be saying that God’s love and mercy is incompatible with thousands of years of conviction on what the Bible clearly teaches about the judgement of hell. Omni-benevolence has become an attribute of God that excludes biblical warnings of sin, judgment, Hell. And ultimately it diminishes the meaning of the Cross. Jesus becomes a life enhancement option or a spiritual booster to a relationship with God. But the Gospel tells a different story of God’s love.

So are we contributing to this false view of God’s love? Or are we confronting it with the biblical reality of God’s love?

As people passionate about the Great Commission how do we communicate to the lost what the Love of God is? Is it clear? Does it magnify the need for the lost to “repent?

Paul says that God’s kindness and patients should lead to repentance (not keep you from it!) [Romans 2:4]. I’m going to give you a test. Are you ready? What follows is a summary of the gospel messages recorded in Acts. See if you can identify what the early Christians preached as the good news of God’s love.

Acts 2:14-41 Pentacost: Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, he was crucified by sinful men, but God raised him from the dead. Moreover Jesus ascended to the right hand of God and is Lord and Christ. Peter points out Israel’s corporate sin in crucifying Jesus. Repentance and baptism in to the name of Jesus is proclaimed for the forgiveness of sins and free gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 3 Lame beggar healed. Peter points out how Israel rejected and denied and killed Jesus the Author of Life. But God raised him from the dead. Peter points to faith in Jesus’ name as the reason for the healing of a cripple. People are called to repent and to turn to God.

Acts 4:5-12 Peter and John before the hight priest. They show how the high priest and elders rejected and killed Jesus. But God raised him from the dead. Salvation is given through his name.The name of Jesus is only name given by which we must be saved.

Acts 5:21-32 Apostles arrested before the high priest. They point out the leaders’ sin in killing Jesus, but God raised him from the dead and exalted him as Leader and Savior to give repentance and forgiveness of sins.

Acts 7:1-60 Stephen before the Sanhedrin gives a history of Israel. Stephen points out the leaders sin in persecuting the prophets who testified about the Christ. and when the Christ (Jesus) did come they murdered him. But Christ was raised and is in heaven standing at the right hand of God.

Acts 10:34-43 Peter before Cornelius. Jesus came preaching the gospel of peace. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power --doing good and healing the sick. Jesus was put to death by the Jews. But God raised him from the dead and appointed Jesus to judge the living and dead. everyone who believes in the name of Jesus receives forgiveness of sins.

Acts 13:13-47 Paul and Barnabas in the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. Jesus is the promised son of king David. He was executed under Pilate. But God raised him from the dead --fulfilling God’s promises. In Jesus sins are forgiven and we are set free from everything that holds us captive under the Law of Moses.

Acts 17 Paul before the Greeks in the Areopagus. God is one, absolute, creator and benefactor. God calls everyone everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day of judgment in righteousness by the man Jesus Christ. This was confirmed by God in raising Jesus from the dead.

Acts 24:24-26 Paul before Felix. Paul spoke about faith in Jesus Christ. Paul reasoned about righteousness, self control, and coming judgment. Felix trembled.

Ok did you get it? Tell me what God’s love is?

Here are some wrong answers:

God’s love is a benevolent feeling God has for everyone that dominates everything that God does.

God loves everyone as part of his family and we are all loved as God’s children.

God has a man-shaped hole in his heart that only YOU can fill.

God is standing like a gentleman outside of your life and he want your acceptance of him and his love for you.

God loves people so much that he will even forgive people who have rejected the gospel or who have never heard.

God loves you so much, and if you give Jesus a try, you will know God’s love better.

So what is that gospel message of God’s love???

God’s love is that he delays his wrath, and sent his Son to die on the cross to forgive the sins of godless people.

God shows our love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Romans 5:8

...God is love, in this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him 1 John 1:9

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation [(wrath bearer)] for our sin 1 John 1:10

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life John 3:16

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us 1 John 3:16

So lets be careful. There is a kind of Romans 2:4 message of God’s love that diminishes the Cross, insults Christ, and damns people.

Yet the biblical message of God’s love is fixed on the cross of Jesus Christ. So living the cross centered life is the place where God’s immense love is known most fully.

This is an huge challenge for us. The love of God towards the world is understood as God’s patience in delaying wrath and judgement (Romans 2:4) so that people would repent (2 Peter 3:9) and believe in Jesus who propitiates (1 John 1:10) God’s wrath for our sin on the cross. God’s love is giving eternal life and rescue from eternal destruction (John 3:16). God’s love is the gift of imputed righteousness of his Son so that we can stand before a holy God for all eternity (Romans 5:17). God’s love is brining us to God himself through the death of his Son (1 Peter 3:18) so that we can worship and enjoy him forever.

Lastly, God’s love is demonstrated by offering this salvation to everyone everywhere. To receive it God calls everyone to repentance of sins and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

May God magnify that love!

Complementarian vs. Egalitarian, why is this an issue?

2006-05-31T12:12:00.000-07:00

Complementarian vs. Egalitarian - DJ posted last week on Vineyard’s new policy to open up the offices of Senior Pastor and Elder to women and accept a full egalitarian position for their church. Lot’s of questions followed. One of the more interesting questions was, “Why is this such an issue (a hot button) for our generation and ministries right now?”

This morning on the Together for the Gospel blog, Mark Dever addresses this question and poses a extremely eye opening answer. He noticed at a recent gathering of pastors that,

“those older than me who are complementarian generally want to downplay this issue, and those younger than me want to lead with it, or at least be very up front about it.”

Please go and read this post, he does a great job of unpacking and laying out why he thinks this true. In summary, he concludes,

“there may be no way the authority of Scripture is being undermined more quickly or more thoroughly in our day than through the hermenuetics of egalitarian readings of the Bible. And when the authority of Scripture is undermined, the gospel will not long be acknowledged. Therefore, love for God, the gospel, and future generations, demands the careful presentation and pressing of the complementarian position.”

This statement more than any other gives a quick summary of why I believe the complementarian position to be something of vital importance that we must believe in and take a stand on for the sake of the gospel, including those of us in para-church ministry. As a women in full-time ministry with giftings towards leadership and strategic thinking, many have questioned how I can believe the truths laid out in the complementarian position. Over the last 5 years, this has been an extremely hard doctrine to get my head around. It has taken much study of the word, reading, prayer, and a work of the Lord to understand this vital issue. It is unbelievable how much I was influenced in this area by the generation I grew up in during the 20 years I was not a believer. Here’s a great article for those seeking to understand this issue more fully.

A friend recently told me how she was learning that doctrine and theology are much more important than she had thought. She said, “I’m really starting to understand how what you believe guides what you do, say, and how you live.” Simply said, this is why this issue is so important!

Instead of believing the culture and confronting the Bible...

2006-05-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Post self explanitory.

The Dying of the Light: A Cautionary Tale

2006-05-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

One book that every Campus Crusade staff person should read is The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from their Christian Churches, by James Tunestead Burtchaell. Unfortunately, it is out of print, and is available used for a hefty price when you find it.

So, I thought I would try my hand at highlighting some important lessons this books can tell us about the campuses on which we work, as well as teach us about ourselves on staff. The story of Dying of the Light is about how Christian organizations start out with a purpose to glorify God, but slowly end up in a place entirely different. The examples are once-Christian colleges. The application could be any denomination or para-church such as Campus Crusade.

Burtchaell set to research various college campuses that originally was religious. He chose campuses he had not had a previous connection with himself, and looked at records such as creeds, administrations, funding, mission statements, policies, speeches and events. Over time, each college tells a story of slow incremental change from fervor to bland secularism and administrations that oppose the original founders’ intent.

I won’t go over every detail of the book (there are some links below to some other reviews to get some differing perspectives on the book). It is over 800 pages and won’t fit in my book bag! Instead, I would like to do a short series highlight several colleges covered in the book.

For now I will leave you with this quote from the first chapter about the Congregationalists who founded Dartmouth for the purpose of training Christian missionaries and pastors. It summarizes the downfall from their original purpose:

The religious elements at their colleges which seemed hale and wholesome were those of piety and moral discipline, not religious discourse. They drew their insights and their perspectives from the other sources that fed the minds of their age: political and philosophical and economic theory and advocacy. The longer their minds were no longer engaged by discourse proper to a believing community, the more likely and indeed inevitable it became that their moral convictions were more framed by the manners of their class, region, and political party than secured to the gospel by the tether of a lively faith tradition. --p. 8

What do you think? Are there things you see as being pitfalls for our faith-based organizations and churches today?

Book reviews of Dying of the Light:
First Things
Academe
A pastor from Desiring God Community Church

Heirarchy in the Trinity--It's a Good Thing

2006-05-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note....I was reading in the Gospel of John this morning and came across this verse that refers to heirarchy in the Godhead:

"For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
--John 12:49-50

Feminists like to argue that heirarchy of any kind is an indicator of inferiority or interpretations of men from a patriarchal perspective. Yet here in the relationship of the Son to the Father, we see a "headship." Jesus is equal to the Father, yet he obeys the Father. Why do the feminists have such trouble then with verses about women not having authority over men in the church if Christ as our example has this kind of relationship with the Father? Why do they insist on interpreting it in a way that pleases their self-interests?

Just a thought....how were your quiet times today? Thanks for letting me share this with you.

Evangelical Feminism; Complementarian; Women in Ministry; Bible Doctrine; Devotionals

"Guidelines" for How to Approach the Ordination of Women at the Vineyard

2006-05-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

It was called to my attention recently that the Vineyard denomination has issued "guidelines" on the issue of women and ordination.

You can read the article here at CBMW.

The new "guidelines" state that:

It should not be implied or assumed that those who believe that women should not be senior pastors are women-haters, etc.

And then goes on to say that:

Mutual respect means that those who believe women cannot be senior pastors must recognize that those who do are committed to the scriptures and are not heretics or among those who believe the Bible is not inspired by God. They simply happen to read the scriptures differently on this point.

In other words, it's okay if you believe the Bible teaches women should not teach or have authority over men, but you better not stand up in opposition to those who believe women should be ordained as pastors.

It goes on:

Include women, who happen to be senior pastors, in the guideline of showing the costly side of loving one another by considering the high importance of the interests of others and putting such consideration into actual practice.

This is the oft-seen argument used by Evangelical Feminists....lay aside your "old-fashioned" and "patriachal" interpretations of authority and submission in the Bible, and instead show "loving others as more important as yourself" by allowing women to find their full potential in the pulpit.

It is interesting that this statement is issued under the guise of the word "guidelines." The national board of directors says it is now in the process of "further study and prayer on the subject of women in all levels of leadership." The foot is in the door and the writing is on the wall.

The article interviews Wayne Grudem who used to be an elder and member of a Vineyard church saying this:

"This development has moved the Vineyard in a direction that (Vineyard founder) John Wimber explicitly opposed when he was alive, such as his 1994 statement, ‘I believe God has established a gender-based eldership of the church.'

This development is further evidence of the fact that no ‘middle ground’ position is possible in the long run regarding the ordination of women as pastors and elders. Once the egalitarian position gains a foothold in a denomination, it soon begins to require everyone to agree with it or else leave the denomination."

Grudem also is quoted saying he is "saddened" by the development. This is a watershed issue for any denomination or organization. Grudem says that asking someone "who rejects female pastors on biblical grounds to "bless" female pastors when they see them at work is encouraging that believer to sin."

Sobering, isn't it? Notice the Vineyard hasn't yet decided officially on the ordination of women, but the decision is essentially made with these guidelines. Perhaps there is time for them to turn back to Biblical truth before it is truly too late?

Evangelical Feminism; Complementarian; Women in Ministry

Dissin' Doctrine? Athanasius and Paul Say No

2006-05-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

What going on with sermons and teaching today? People are teaching less and less from the Bible. What's going on with students today? They see the word "doctrine" as almost a four-letter word, not to mention boring and old-school. You hear more condemning statements on intellectual and thinking theology. Surely students are becoming more bible illiterate as time goes on, but does that mean we should poo-poo solid doctrine? How did Paul the Apostle respond?

I find statements like "Christ unites; Doctrine divides" to be extremely dangerous. Now you might say, "DJ, come on, what's wrong with that? People are always arguing about doctrine and spend so much time finding differences between each other that no kingdom work gets done!" Ok, let me take a couple of examples why we should seriously care about doctrine; one from history and one specifically from the Bible.

First, Athanasius was the bishop of Egypt back in the 4th century (300 AD). He is described as a man that was passionately devoted to truth all his life, and he is known by some as the Father of Orthodoxy. The battle of his day was over the deity of Christ, and it was a time when many of the church was following a man named Arius. Arius basically argued that if Jesus was God's Son, he had to have a beginning, he had to be created. Therefore there must have been a time when Jesus didn't exist, according to Arius. The Nicene Creed was some of the fruit of Athanasius' labor, which affirmed that Jesus was never created and is the same essence of the Father, and it condemned anyone who said he had a beginning, like Arius and those who followed his teaching.

But despite the Creed, afterwards many for years tried to falsely accuse Athanasius and because of it he was exiled five times! The heretics basically jacked him for the majority of his life, even trying to kill him, but he stayed faithful to truth and he became a hero of the church because of it. Here is a bio of his life and ministry.

So how is Athanasius relevant to our discussion on our current "doctrine-dissing" Christian culture? Well one reason is because Athanasius was such a stickler for truth, he helped us set an example of why doctrine matters. The Arian heretics would not come out and say that they didn't believe what the Bible says about Jesus. The Arian bishops would say that they loved Jesus, submitted to him, and saw the Bible as their absolute authority and wholly from God. Some who tried to combat their false view of Jesus would ask them if they believed Scriptural passages on the deity of Christ like John 10:30 , Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:1-9, and others, and the Arians would just say, "Oh yes we totally believe those Scriptures, we believe the whole Bible." Therefore it would be very frustrating to pin down that they were believing things about Jesus that were not what they Bible taught, because they would use the Bible to support what they said about Jesus being created.

So people like Athanasius were forced to use extra-biblical language in order to draw out the heresy. This is why saying things like "It is Christ who unites us, it is doctrine that divides us," would be utterly horrible to Athanasius because that is exactly how the Arians talked! Athanasius had to come up with language like "of the same essence of the Father" and that "he was begotten but never created" which are not explicitly in the Bible, but clearly would expose the heresy of the Arians who would not agree to such statements about Jesus. The Arians said they loved Jesus, but the questions is WHICH Jesus did they love? To say that "Christ unites and doctrine divides" is ultimately unintelligible, because the doctrine of Christ's deity defines which Christ you believe in.

Here's what matters: if you believe wrong doctrine about Jesus you go to hell. If you say like the Arians, "I love Jesus! But I believe he was created and not of the same essence as the Father" then you don't love Jesus, you love a false Jesus, and you will go to hell. Right doctrine about Jesus makes all the difference. We must LOVE DOCTRINE if we love Christ!

A modern day example of this would be Mormons. How many of us have had hard conversations with Mormons, using the Bible to point them to the deity of Christ, that He is very God of very God, but they come back with other Scripture to show that Jesus wasn't God? We find that we have to resort to language (doctrine!) that clearly shows that they believe in a DIFFERENT JESUS than we do. They say they love Jesus I am sure, but they love a false Jesus, and they will spend eternity (oh how horrible it is!) separated from him in everlasting punishment.

The second example we have is from the book of Galatians. Paul, when confronted with the false gospel (false doctrine on how people get saved) of the Galatian Judaizers, did not just dance around it and say, "Hey, we all love Jesus; let's just focus on him and have unity." No, but this is what Paul said:

"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." Galatians 1:6-9

So Paul goes nuts about doctrine! He says that anyone who teaches different things (doctrine!) about the gospel and Jesus than what is true, even if HE does, then they should go to hell! And then he repeats himself! "Let them go to hell!"

APPLICATION

So what do we conclude then? Doctrine matters. All of us, whether in churches or parachurch groups, whether the PCA or Campus Crusade for Christ (like many of us), should care about doctrine. We should LOVE the truths about Jesus that have transformed our lives and others' lives. We should rid our lives (and those whom we labor among) of ideas like "intellectual/thinking theology is bad" or "let's just focus on Jesus!" Yes, let's focus on Jesus, and let us not get caught up in theology for the sake of theology, but like Paul and Athanasius, let us care about Jesus and His glory, and making the right Jesus known in our movements and churches.

Let us raise up students in our movements that LOVE truths (doctrine) about Jesus and his kingdom. Let us show them how to be passionate about the lost and that a heart that really cares about the lost and Jesus' kingdom is one that cares about right doctrine. Let us teach from the BIBLE and use it as our proof in talks, discipleship, and life. Let us teach students how to base EVERYTHING they believe from the Word. Let us not ride the wave of many churches that only take a couple bible passages for their sermons or talks, and then have 90% stories for the rest.

May God do this in our movements to his glory and so people are reached with the truth of who He is!

True Revival?

2006-05-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

When Jonathan Edwards saw revival in the Connecticut valley in 1734, critics began to ask questions. Was Edwards stirring up people's emotions? Was he encouraging people to "excesses" in their church services? Was it all really true as the reports of the Awakening filtered to the more metropolitan religious centers?

Edwards was not upset at such questioning, but even welcomed it. In 1737, he would write A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God which would give a detailed account of just what the revival actually looked like. Even more important is his work Religious Affections, which looks at the nature of revivals from a long term perspective. In short, he became more cautious about revival, since many of the people who first showed spiritual excitement and even commitment, soon fell back into their old ways. Time can only tell if conversion to Christ is really genuine.

With that in mind, I think it is important to look at reports of current revivals in the same way. For it they are genuine, then no harm is done. God is glorified despite our questioning. But if it is decided that it is a true revival when it is not, then people stand to be hurt and their faith even crushed.

Which brings me Jaeson Ma and the reports of revival at UCLA. What is interesting to me is how there is so much excitement over Jaeson's reports, but I have yet to see anyone asking the hard questions. Are there truly "scores" of people coming to Christ as he reports? Or are they more people from the numerous other Christian groups switching over to Jaeson's campus church?

I am not saying it isn't all true. I am just asking the question.

Let's be real honest here about ourselves. How many big events have we done on our campuses where there were more people then we expected who came? We have seen turnouts of people in the hundreds for events and they have heard the gospel.

Now, at those events, think of the comment cards we collect afterwards? What is the usual percentage of postive comments we receive back? More than 10%? 20%? 50%? At Pomona we sometimes have a big stack of cards of a couple hundred postive responses out of a an attendence of 600 students. That's pretty exciting, isn't it? I think it is God at work to even get people to come, much less fill out a card.

But then comes time to call back people and meet with them. This is when the parable of the soils become real to us. We begin to see excuses, unanswered voice messages, missed appointments. We even have people who seemingly place their faith in Christ and go through follow-up only to disappear in a few months, never to be seen again. At the end of a good year, we see a handful of new believers walking with the Lord and growing. Even then, every student we work with is prey to the Evil One or open to stumbling and falling away for a while.

What is my point? That only time will tell if someone is truly converted. It is not a secret. We all know it experientially. And because of that factor, we have to rely on God more than ever, because we can't make a person grow or have more faith. God is the one who ultimately does the work of saving.

So in looking at what Jaeson Ma is saying, I think we need to have the same kind of caution and even awe. If God is doing a great work and if this true revival, how much more should we all be living in awe and fear of God's great power encouraging us to remain faithful? This was certainly the New testament response. That is what we want. This would be coupled with an increased passion for sharing the Gospel and commitment to His word and living according to what His word teaches. I suspect that is what Jaeson wants as well, and all those who are involved in praying for revival. If we get focused on the apparent signs and wonders rather than the Gospel that is cause for question and biblical spiritual discernment.

The other component I am wondering about in the claims being made are the healings. Jaeson talks about a couple instances where he prayed for people and they started walking around and feeling "better." Has anyone followed up these people to see if it truly was a complete healing? Have bones been put back together and pain pills flushed down the toilet? I believe God does still heal supernaturally, but these accounts given are not convincing. It would be a good idea to spend a little extra time validating them. How about some others that where there that could even co-oberate the experience?

Another question I have is in regard to why the excitement about Jaeson Ma, and what is his personal accountability. It is strange that when we apply for staff or overseas assignments, we have to undergo 700 question psychological exams. If we move to a position of leadership we submit to a 360 review. We also work on a team and it becomes an environment where we receive feedback for our personal growth. If you have a blind spot, it will surely be revealed in time as you work closely with others in the team environment of staff life! (What a blessing!)

Yet, why are so many Campus Crusade staff ready to platform Jaeson Ma, still in his early 20s as a rising star? Who works side by side with him and how does he respond to authority? How would he do on 360 review after several years working with a staff team? Does he have peers, or he is surrounded mostly by followers? Is his board consisting of people who really know him on a deep personal level?

I only ask this, not becuase I think Jaeson is not sincere---he seems completely sincere to me---but I have concerns for him. Are we doing him any favors by platforming him at our conferences? Is he going to end up being burnt out in a couple years, at 27 years old, as revival wains and he sits on campus wondering what happened?

I wonder what you all think, am I being too hard on our friend of the ministry?

"Self-Worth" or "God-Worth"?

2006-05-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

While at our staff conference this weekend J.P. Moreland mentioned letting go of our false-selves with their facades and embracing our true selves, the sinful messed up one that God sees. While I believe there is definite truth in statements like this, the language threw off alarms in my head because I hear many today using this "Christian" psychology language. I fear much of this doesn't have the basis for its teaching the Bible, but modern-day psychology.

I want to give you one example of a biblical difference. I received this in the mail today from the ministry of John Piper, Desiring God. I share it with you to show the extreme difference:

"Q: How should we counsel someone struggling with feelings of inadequacy and self-pity?

A: Should we tell an abandoned person that they have great "self-worth" when they feel like a failure and a piece of junk? First, let's chuck the phrase "self-worth" because it is so unbelievably loaded with a psychologized man-centered world-view that it will probably not help get across what a feeling of God-centered significance really is. My answer is, Not first... The issue is a trust issue. Has God blown it in this relationship? Has he made a mistake in making me homely, or nervous, or blind, or short, or, or, or? I think that the quick retreat to the self-esteem therapy here is hopelessly misleading and leaves the real problem unresolved, while helping a person feel good because they are somebody (which God just happens to serve to support). The issue is do they love God as God in a way that satisfies them enough to pick up and go on? Do they trust his goodness and wisdom and power and riches to help them do what they must do? Do they rejoice in him because they are granted the ten-billion dollar privilege of knowing him and being loved by him? Or must they have all that vision of glory really echo their own worth before they get any help from it?

But I do not deny or hide that it is wonderfully significant to know God and to be used by God to make him known and loved by others. So there comes a time that I will say this, and say it in a way that makes it plain that the wonder of it lies in the preciousness of knowing God and mirroring him well enough in my delight in him that others can see his worth in me and join me in enjoying him."

Say No to Hierarchy?

2006-05-05T00:16:00.000-07:00

In my recent probe into the Emerging Church and other current models of the church I have come across a concept that deeply concerns me. The message I am hearing goes something like this: Hierarchy and appointed leaders in the church are negative and hinder God from working greatly. Leadership structures don’t allow freedom for the Spirit of God to do what He desires to do. This message, I believe, is itself harmful and more importantly, unbiblical, and I believe if it is practiced ultimately and finally on any level it will harm God’s people. You may have heard people mentioning things like this, believing them, or you may have never heard something like this. Regardless, I think it is valuable to take a biblical survey of leadership.

So let’s see some Bible texts to show us why leadership is a good thing. First, Jesus’ own example was to pick 12 specific men to train, not everyone:

“And he appointed twelve...so that they might be with him and might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” Mark 3:15

And among those 12 Jesus had an inner three that he gave special attention and authority and insight, like at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). Jesus did not pick the masses to start his church, but he picked a few key leaders.

And we see Paul modeling this with all the Gentile churches in appointing elders:

In Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch: “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” Acts 14:23

And in Ephesus: “...he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.” Acts 20:17

Jerusalem had elders as well while Paul was appointing them in Gentile churches:

“...the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and ELDERS who were in Jerusalem.” Acts 16:4

So we see the model that wherever Paul went he made it his business to appoint elders to shepherd and keep watch over the church and to have authority to lead as a servant. You can see Paul’s theological model for this in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. The qualifications for these leaders are pretty strong; they must be men with holy lives, men of strong doctrinal conviction so that they can rebuke bad doctrine, they must be able to manage their families well, and be self-controlled servants like Jesus on top of all that. Surely there is much authority given to the elders in the NT churches.

And how are those who are in the church supposed to act towards these elders and leaders? We are told time and time again to respect their leadership and submit to it:

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Hebrews 13:17

The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that we are to submit to the leadership of those over us, and this isn’t bad for us, it is to our advantage! We are to let the leaders over us do lead with joy as a result of our respectful attitude towards them.

“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.” 1 Peter 5:5

Again, we see a definite command by Peter for those younger in the church to place themselves under the leadership and guidance of the elders.

“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13

Finally, we get one more command and urging from Paul for the people of the church to respect their leaders. And we get a very clear view that these leaders have authority over the people of the church because they are “over” them. And Paul says to esteem them “very highly in love.”

Conclusions

So, in conclusion, I see a few things:

1) Leadership is a Biblical Model: We see again and again that people having real authority over the teaching and leading of a church is what God has called His people to.

2) Leadership doesn’t hinder the Spirit, it’s commanded by the Spirit: If leadership structures hindered the work of the Spirit among God’s people, then it wouldn’t be commanded in EVERY church. The Bible is the Spirit speaking to us, so the Spirit is the one telling us to have leaders over each other.

3) Leadership structures should expand to other extra-church ministries: Some say that because groups like Campus Crusade (whom I am a part of) are para-church ministries, they don’t need to follow the model of churches. It is true that parachurch ministries should not have elders, but the principle of leadership should be the same. If the church needs leaders and direction, how much more other organizations?

We should be very concerned with leadership models that make people feel superior to those they are leading. Criticizing this type of leadership is a good thing. Jesus served those he led, but everyone knew he was their leader. Just because he washed their feet doesn’t mean anyone in the room questioned who was in charge. So we must fight for leadership, but fight for the servant, humble, lay-down-your-life leaders who will die to themselves for others to know and see Jesus.

A Refreshing View of the Church

2006-04-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Today is a time when the view of what the church is is dramatically changing and being questioned. I find that there are many different thoughts being thrown around; some coming from the Emerging church movement, some coming from consumer-oriented entertainment churches, and everywhere in between. I myself have thoughts of what a "church" is; is it just a group of believers together? Is it a group that primarily serves to feed believers or to reach non-believers? Should the bible be exegetically preached? So many questions!

Among all this, I have come across a refreshing, biblical view of what a church really is. It comes from a ministry called 9 Marks, headed by a pastor in Washington D.C. named Mark Dever. I commend this to you as a model that seeks the Bible as the primary definer of what a local church body is.

Why does this matter for Campus Crusade for Christ? Well this matters because it defines how we see ourselves. Do we see ourselves as a church; or are we a parachurch ministry that seeks to partner with local churches? Should we encourage our students to be involved in a Bible-preaching church; or is it plenty to be involved in our movement? It really matters I believe. So check it out and see what you think.

1. Expositional Preaching
This is preaching which expounds what Scripture says in a particular passage, carefully explaining its meaning and applying it to the congregation. It is a commitment to hearing Gods Word and to recovering the centrality of it in our worship.

2. Biblical Theology Paul charges Titus to "teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). Our concern should be not only with how we are taught, but with what we are taught. Biblical theology is a commitment to know the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself in Scripture.

3. Biblical Understanding of the Good News
The gospel is the heart of Christianity. But the good news is not that God wants to meet people's felt needs or help them develop a healthier self-image. We have sinfully rebelled against our Creator and Judge. Yet He has graciously sent His Son to die the death we deserved for our sin, and He has credited Christ's acquittal to those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus' death and resurrection. That is the good news.

4. Biblical Understanding of Conversion
The spiritual change each person needs is so radical, so near the root of us, that only God can do it. We need God to convert us. Conversion need not be an emotionally heated experience, but it must evidence itself in godly fruit if it is to be what the Bible regards as a true conversion.

5. Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
How someone shares the gospel is closely related to how he understands the gospel. To present it as an additive that gives non-Christians something they naturally want (i.e. joy or peace) is to present a half-truth, which elicits false conversions. The whole truth is that our deepest need is spiritual life, and that new life only comes by repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus. We present the gospel openly, and leave the converting to God.

6. Biblical Understanding of Membership
Membership should reflect a living commitment to a local church in attendance, giving, prayer and service; otherwise it is meaningless, worthless, and even dangerous. We should not allow people to keep their membership in our churches for sentimental reasons or lack of attention. To be a member is knowingly to be traveling together as aliens and strangers in this world as we head to our heavenly home.

7. Biblical Church Discipline
Church discipline gives parameters to church membership. The idea seems negative to people today didnt our Lord forbid judging? But if we cannot say how a Christian should not live, how can we say how he or she should live? Each local church actually has a biblical responsibility to judge the life and teaching of its leaders, and even of its members, particularly insofar as either could compromise the churchs witness to the gospel.

8. Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth
A pervasive concern with church growth exists today not simply with growing numbers, but with growing members. Though many Christians measure other things, the only certain observable sign of growth is a life of increasing holiness, rooted in Christian self-denial. These concepts are nearly extinct in the modern church. Recovering true discipleship for today would build the church and promote a clearer witness to the world.

9. Biblical Understanding of Leadership
What eighteenth-century Baptists and Presbyterians often agreed upon was that there should be a plurality of elders in each local church. This plurality of elders is not only biblical, but practical it has the immense benefit of rounding out the pastors gifts to ensure the proper shepherding of Gods church.

To Conference or Not To Conference....That is the Question I Am Asking

2006-04-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

This past year between my husband and I we have been over 10 conferences/retreats. And there are several more to go.

We have participated in each event at varying levels. Our staff retreat at the beginning of the school year, we planned from top to bottom. Other retreats we coach students students and staff to do the planning. Some conferences are planned largely by others, but we take on one aspect such as prayer or discussion groups. Rarely we just get to show up and not do anything. Most require us to participate by learning or engaging. (The only one we did nothing at was a retreat we took just the two of us!) Some of these events are small and intimate, others involve several hundred people.

Multiply this by the 20 years we have been in full-time ministry, and....well....you get attendance required! In the beginning, there weren’t as many retreats or conference, but in recent years, for some reason, it has multiplied almost exponentially.

For all the talk about becoming post-modern, one modern thing we have kept and nurtured into the new millennium is The Conference. Have you noticed? They are everywhere, and not only limited to the para-church or any theological persuasion. Arminian or Reformed. Fundamentalist or Emergent. Male only on one coast and synergistic women on the other. Summits and Conversations. Retreat and Call to Action. It’s all available at least once during a calendar year. Make your reservation now!

Certainly there is effectiveness in bringing people together who normally don’t get a chance to interact in the normal routine of life. A conference is a place to dispense ideas and create a momentum around those ideas. It is the modern equivalent of the Revival Tent, or possibly the county fair. You take time out of your humdrum schedule to taste the sights and sounds of what the rest of the world has been doing since the last time you met. Someone has discovered a way to fatten the hog with less grain or grow more wheat per square foot. You get to take the new discovery back home and improve on things around the farm until next year.

Okay, so I sound a little jaded? Yeah. I am. But not because of what you might think. You see, I really do like to get away. I love--even as an introvert--catching up with long-lost friends. Eating out? You bet! Having a chance to lead something is even bonus! Planning these things is even more fun. Seeing it come together and people getting influenced because of something you put together is, well, satisfying and rewarding.

So what makes me jaded? It’s because it is not real life. Sometimes I feel like it is the same kind of stimulus you get from too much X-Box. You live in this alternate universe where you are friends with the entire plant (it seems), and you get this buzz from hopping in the car, plane, or carpool and then sleeping in a bed that gets made by someone else everyday. Or staying up late playing games and then falling into a deep sleep snuggled in your sleeping bag. Someone else cleans up after you and makes your meals. You don’t even spend money while you are there. Everything is included. If it turns out great and you had a part in it, then instant kudos.

Real life is not like that. It is humdrum sometimes. People don't say, that was a great job the way you balanced the checkbook, changed those diapers, trimmed the roses, picked up that gallon of milk at the store, and had your quiet time....all before lunchtime! In daily life, continuity is part of your reward. You have to cook, clean up your messes, spend time with just you and the family, deepen existing relationships, and be faithful in the little things.

There are also local life events. This weekend is a “Pit Party” for my boys in Awana where they will go to someone’s house who has the right tools for carving up their pinewood derby cars. But dad has a conference. There were basketball games and volleyball games he also missed for the same reason. We’ve missed church and fellowship dinners and elder meetings. My elderly mother gets put off another week. Our ongoing relationships at home get temporarily disrupted.

Some would argue, “that is the sacrifice for being in full-time ministry.” Yes, there is truth to that. Interruptions are a part of ministry. The question is how many disruptions do we need to create for ourselves on an ongoing basis? Is every good thing truly good? Or are we creating an lifestyle dependent on the good feeling we get from attending conferences and retreats?

Many years ago, an older staff person said to me, “Just send me the notebook and I will fill out the form telling you what I got from it.” Now we can podcast an entire conference or rely at least on a good blogger to give us the most important details and feel of a conference. At the Shepherd’s Conference which only Jim attended, I actually “met” people via blogging about it! Yet, during that same time, did I grow in understanding of my teenage daughter’s heart? Was I able to focus in prayer for those around my immediate world were hurting, much less pick up the phone or hop in the car to minister to them?

The problem is that conferences and retreats are fun and energizing. They do the things they are meant to do. A well-run conference is a beautiful thing. But it is not the most important thing. The attraction fades in light of what it saps from the goodness of our everyday lives. My immediate sphere is not the world, but it is the world God gave me in which to dig deeper. Being spread thin among hundreds of people over several time zones should only be a sometime thing.

Let me reiterate. I love going to conferences and retreats. I have enjoyed all the ones I have attended. I love helping make them happen! I appreciate those who put them together. They all have been important and significant in my life this year. I appreciate the connections I have made through each one, and my husband feels the same about all the things he has attended. This is not about me thinking these events are boring or unimportant or stupid. I hope you do not walk away from this post thinking that.

Now, allow me to be specific, now that I have danced around the elephant before us. Campus Crusade, in general, needs to rethink how and how often it does conferences. All are good and helpful, but are they truly necessary? Do they draw us away as staff from our local communities too much? How many communities is a person meant to have? Is there another way we can spread information without disrupting our families and local networks of family and friends? Can we begin to value the local staff sphere just a little more in the future? Does the fact we can travel more quickly and easily mean we have to actually travel so much? How do we tame the beast of multiple movements from spawning multiple conferences at every turn (sorry, I am getting carried away here...I’ll stop.....). I think you get the idea. I am just asking questions and hoping someone will listen. It’s what we all think and feel at the local level.

And I just said it.

Da Da Vinci Code...

2006-04-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Tim Challies did a review of the Josh McDowell's book, The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers, which we will be handing out the week the Da Vinci Code will be released. I encourage you to read it (the review) if you have not already done so.

The national team offered us and other campuses 1000 of these books and 1000 brochures for free if we used them for an evangelistic outreach. Since we are on the quarter system, it works perfectly for us as a spring quarter event. We pray that it will open more doors for us to have conversations with people about Christ!

4th Annual Golf Tournament

2006-04-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Monday, April 17th, was our 4th Annual Golf Tournament to raise money for the ministry here at Cal Poly Pomona. We estimate that over $9000 was raised yesterday! Part of the money will also go directly to our overseas partnership with a ministry in Central Asia. This was our most successful tournament yet, not just in terms of dollars, but in the fun we had. It was a beautiful day on an exclusive course in Western Hills Estates. The highlight and surprise of the day is Mike Berk's brother made a Hole-in-One. Amazing! We also were able to have the best raffle ever, thanks mostly to Debbie Baron. Several thousand dollars of prizes given away yesterday. here are pictures that I (the colonel) took yesterday...

Our hole-in-one winner.

Getting ready to head out on the course.

Some of our four-somes.

The Short-Game Clinic.

Isn't HE Great!

2006-04-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

I'm here at our local leaders retreat in snowy Estes Park Colorado. We've been having a great week hearing from our national team and discussing our focus and reality in the campus ministry. I could share so many questions, discussions, and thoughts but I'll just highlight a few things from the week I've been thinking about:

1. Where are we at in our understanding of the Holy Spirit in our ministry? How well can our team and our students explain and live out the Spirit filled life? We cover it in our freshman bible studies and probably talk about it in discipleship, but what's our daily reality? I've been reminded about the power of a daily surrendered life submitted fully to Jesus. Reminded that to live a gospel-centered life and have a gospel-centered ministry this truth is vital. More on that later ...

2. What would it look like to have our entire ministry excited about and living out our DNA of Win/Build/Send? What if an average Freshman who walks into our ministry leaves excited about this truth ready to apply it in their lives? What if all of 200+ of us involved were so excited about the gospel that we were on campus with the purpose of Winning people to Christ, Building them up in their faith, and teaching them to be Sent and do the same? What has to change in our ministry to see every person from freshman, to senior, to staff, to facility be excited to be a part of this process? Not just staff or Target Area Leaders but everyone who is a part of us is a part of us for this purpose. More on this later ...

3. Probably the biggest "aha" movement of the week was hearing Ric Hove speak to our region from the word. He did a sweep across the bible highlighting our continuing rejection of God (despite our desperate need for Him) and God's continual amazing pursuit and kindness towards His people. One of the actions of how we live that out as leaders was having a gospel-centered ministry. He said, "What if everyone who encounters your ministry on campus leaves with the thought, ISN'T HE GREAT!" So that every weekly meeting we are focusing on exalting Christ so believer and non-believers leaves saying, "Isn't He great", not saying, "that was fun, music was good, I felt cared for, or I need to be doing xyz more." Where every person we come across in a bible study, out sharing, in our weekly mtgs, or at an outreach leaves knowing our purpose in that was exalting Christ and showing them how great He is! What if this was our criteria for all our planning? What if our goal was to see this in EVERYTHING our movement was a part of? What if this was our success criteria for all our evaluation? I really think if people see how great Christ is, they will come to know Christ and/or be motivated for ministry. How can we do this, more later ...

So, mostly I have a lot of questions to bring back and discuss with everyone. Please comment and share ideas or thoughts based on what I'm learning out here. I can't wait to be back with you guys. Pray for us - it might snow tonight or tomorrow. Pray we can get home on Friday and not be delayed in anyway because of weather.

SMSB: Santa Monica Spring Break '06

2006-04-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

Anne shot some (okay a ton) of pictures at our Santa Monica Spring Break trip. Here's a few....

Sharing our faith on 3rd Street Promenade...

Why is it everyone is always on their cell phones?
But this looks like the place to be to share the Gospel!!

People are open to talk about the Gospel.

During the day we also went to Santa Monica College...

Of course prayer is goes hand in hand with sharing our faith.

And time in the Word...

And time for just being together...

And Puckett....he's usually more mild mannered
than this...guess it's that inner child thing.

Or is he just Wild at Heart?

Yeah....it's a sweet life.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. Thanks Anne!!!

Leaders At Risk

2006-04-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

Last summer, Jim and Alisha were in the new local leaders training for CCC. One memorable talk was given by Marc Rutter, our National Human Resource Director on Leaders at Risk. His talked sparked great conversation between Jim and I as we thought of those who have fallen and those who we perceived were at risk--including ourselves. Rutter gave some excellent points that I think are worth sharing here again on red flags as well as marks of maturity for a leader.

Marc told us of a study that was done on people in ministry who have fallen.
They looked at personality profiles, interviewed people around the person in question, and gather any other information available to see if there were any common denominators. The people who had who had left their ministries in disgrace varied in age and gender as well as in their “crime”--things that ranged from sexual immorality to embezzlement to abuse. Yet the study revealed a pattern of “red flags” in each situation.

Here are some red flags:

The Narcissistic Star Who Rises

These are talented, gifted people. Students like them...maybe even worship them. You’ve probably seen it happen when you hear people say, “So-&-so said this...or ”So-&-So says we should do it this way“ Things are measured by what this person does and says. In group situations people just gravitate and hover around this person, peppering them with questions. And, darn it, they are interesting and knowledgeable. The danger is that the underlying problems with the character never get addressed. Everyone is busy fawning, but no one is caring for them as a fallen sinner who is in the sanctification process like everyone else. Pretty soon they forget this reality of who they are on the inside, and start believing they really are the perfect persona they display to everyone else.

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Galatians 6:3

The Narcissistic Star Who Doesn’t Rise

This person is like the Narcissistic Star on the Rise. However, they don’t get the same praise as the person on the rise. As a result, they feel victimized when you call them on inconsistencies in their life. They generally reject criticism, because they feel compelled to preserve their image.

You’ve probably met people like this. (Or maybe you have found yourself acting like this!) Sometimes we get a student or staff like this that on one hand seems perfect. They tell you how great their Bible study is going, or how much they have accomplished in the past before you knew them. But then as time goes on you find there are some character flaws that need to be addressed, and when you do (as graciously as you can) they deny it.

No Boundaries

This person is a passive and permissive leader, or the can’t say “no” leader. They can’t say “no” to themselves. They can’t say “no” to others. They can’t say “no” to how much money they spend. The result is that they put themselves and the organization in danger. This person will often leave the ministry in deep debt. Because of their inability to say no their family life suffers and marriages potentially fall apart.

Floaters

This is the itinerant silent rebel who doesn’t like authority. They don’t want to be accountable to any authority. It is hard to reign them in. If pushed, they move laterally or create a new ministry position for themselves.

Irresponsible

I think this is pretty self-explanatory.

Authority Problems (never see themselves as wrong)

This a person that is simply evil. They are out to bring other people down. They can’t be corrected. Be ready to get taken to court. Although, they have a high sense of right and wrong, they are ready to reinterpret things so they don’t have to be wrong.

A while back we were aware of such a situation of a leader that had some of these red flags. When the truth came out in public about his ungodly lifestyle, he was unrepentant. He was a successful evangelical in the rise who had no real accountability. A rubberstamp elder board. His immoral lifestyle didn’t match what he preached on Sunday. Anyone who spoke out against him was threatened with a lawsuit and labeled devisive. He eventually was forced out due to church discipline when “certain photos” were exposed on the evening news. He ended up moving and starting another church.

What do we do?

If you review the red flags above do you see a pattern of sin? Or do you see what is at the core of each of the sins above? I don’t think it’s reductionist to say that it is pride.

These red flags we should be particularly be asking ourselves and others if they see these in us. We are so easily self delusional. We should search our hearts and see if there be any evil way in us. We must reject the sin that plagues every leader - Pride. We also shouldn’t be quick to promote that “rising star” no matter how passionate or spiritual he may seem on the outside. The sin of pride lurks in the shadows to take that young leader down. Authority issues which are rooted in pride, are rampant in recent generations (actually every generation), need to be addressed on a continual basis. Godly, strong, daring, humble leaders is what we need to be imparting to students and staff around us.

The real issue is with ourselves. When we humbly read this red flag list(though not exhaustive), we will see a bit of ourselves(unless we are self deluded and have no one honestly giving us feedback). After all, let’s just be honest. Hiding our sin is not going to help us. Who likes criticism? Who likes being disciplined? Don’t we all prize independence? Isn’t our natural inclination to avoid the pain of being “found out.”

I Tim 3 is a great reminder of what God is looking for in a leader. Though it is a list for elders, we should aim for these qualities in our lives. That our lives would be characterized by these qualities. Are there leaders you can emulate in your life?

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. -Phil 3:17

Are you beholding the Glory of the Lord becoming increasingly more like Him?

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. -2 Cor 3:18

What we need to remember is the cross. To look at Jesus and His humility and realize we are to follow his example of dying to self is a mark of true greatness.

All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word. -Isaiah 66:2

If Jesus as an innocent man bore the shame and insults, certainly we as culpable followers can learn to bear and embrace godly criticism of our character deficiencies and our pride. Humility and focus on the Cross is the path to Christlikeness. Our model, our champion, the Lion of Judah is Jesus, most awesome leader that ever lived.

Oh Lord, let us follow you humbly and walk in the example of your ways!

Link to Philippians 2.

Movements Everywhere: Some Essentials

2006-03-26T23:56:00.000-08:00

Reaching the campus for Christ is a daunting task in itself and it should drive us to our knees (as it most certainly does) to plead to the Lord of the harvest to bring us laborers and faithful disciples to go after the scope. Our time is consumed each day with evangelism and discipleship and sending. Cutting edge stuff. All three happening at the same time. Taking risks, going after the scope. Hardcore. I agree with Rev(great job on the biblical basis for how we should approach today’s movement and movement building) that the nuts and bolts of Staffed campus ministry more closely resemble Acts 19. A labor of love over time.

Some of the elements I see that are necessary to get to the scope and sustain for the long haul are as follows. (this list is not exhaustive, but what comes immediately to my mind late at night. Please comment or correct.)

First, we must disciple students to not become caught up in the latest fads in theology and ministry methods. To stay focused on the Cross. I would point the reader to read CJ Mahaney’s book the Cross Centered Life. Constantly reminding ourselves what we are on this earth for. To be completely sold out to Jesus. This means we need to teach our students the Bible. They need to memorize the Gospel and the scripture that corresponds to the Gospel. Many freshman students are becoming increasingly biblically illiterate. I had a student recently in a Bible study who grew up in Christian home that had to look at the table of contents to find Romans, a product of today’s evangelicalism. We cannot make assumptions anymore.

Second, We must rely on the local church’s solid biblical teaching and preaching that exhorts our students to courageously proclaim Christ. Sadly many of our students find themselves getting milk when they need a really good steak on a weekly basis. So we at Pomona, encourage our students to get involved in a local Bible teaching, Gospel centered church whose ministry philosophy is not who has the best worship or being cool. Our students, and staff for that matter, need a church that is regularly, consistently giving them rock solid teaching so that they can sustain a cutting edge back in the trenches in their classroom and dorm room. They also need solid teaching to keep them from falling into heresy or the latest theological fad. As we experience growth we want our students to be biblical and discerning. We live in a generation where unprecedented internet access to heretical information leaves our movements open to wolves in sheep’s clothing. Let’s not be naïve that we live in safety. Whenever we storm the gates of hell the Evil One will fight back where we are most vulnerable. Let’s be honest with ourselves, lack of biblical knowledge will leave us open to destruction. When students graduate, most will not join staff. But, Lord willing, they will be in a church the rest of their lives. We need to model what that looks like. We need to model how to pick a solid church and stick to it. Jesus was committed to and passionate for His bride, church. We need to have that same passion and commitment to the local church that Jesus had. Dr. Bright early in our ministry’s history was pressured by his leadership to have Campus Crusade for Christ become a church. I think Dr. Bright did the right thing in the 60’s by continuing to keep us a servant of the church and not buckling to pressure. Let’s not cross that line. Let us humbly submit to the church’s leadership and theological protection.

Third, I believe Movements Everywhere does have redeeming elements. It does get us to think outside our current paradigm. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for Catalytic’s input on the Staffed Campus lane. Catalytic’s been doing this kind of ministry for years. The most compelling aspect of Movements Everywhere is that it incorporates what we’ve been doing as missionaries for years, contextualizing the Gospel to different people groups and cultures. (Without compromising the Gospel of course) But there are some things that should be kept in the Staffed Campus ministry that is the bedrock of our movement. Discipleship. Done in the context of time. Have we dispensed with the mantra of the Growth Model? Grace plus truth over time? Yeah, I believe in the Gospel’s ability to transform lives. I’m not opposed to multiple generations of new believers, as seen in Thailand years ago (Something like 25 generations of disciples, who were immediately put through intensive NLTC training I might add – something Americans would have difficulty choking down these days in our
entertainment saturated culture.). But to expect new converts to lead immediately seems counter intuitive and I would venture to say unbiblical. The most basic understanding of the Bible tells us that we need to grow in character and biblical knowledge. That takes time. Three years for the disciples, thirteen years for Paul, two years for the church in Acts 19. The Persons of Peace we’ve chosen, the new leaders of our movements, here at Pomona, all came from church backgrounds. No new converts. We prayed for, and cast vision for what God could do through them. We shared with them that they could have the privilege being a part of God’s work on campus and the world. They were captivated by the vision they took it and ran with it. This process was and is messy. But we continue to disciple them, coach them and catalytically relate to them. I don’t hold them back because I think they are too young to lead. But I also coach them to take appropriate steps of faith. I take stock of their character deficiencies and bring Scripture to bear on their lives. I nuture them as I would a small plant. The Scriptures are pregnant with examples of agrarian metaphors for the growth of leaders. We cannot skip ahead, compress, microwave. We can take risks, go for it, trust God, but to build healthy self-sustaining, non-heretical movements you need to invest in the new leader’s growth and character, this takes time.

Last thing, should be the first actually, is prayer. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. Nothing. We are praying for student initiated prayer. I’m totally weak in this area. But I’m convinced that this is what holds our movement together and moves us forward. If you’ve been in ministry you know what it’s like when you are doing ministry in your own self effort it’s miserable. But when I pray, when my staff team prays, when students pray, “God things” happen. Leaders appear out of nowhere. We have eight students applying for summer project and two weeks later we have 45. We have assimilated converts from randoms. We have students excited about evangelism. Things happen that can only be explained by God. We give Him all the glory. We must pray. An encouraging article that changed my view on prayer is by John Piper about not treating prayer as a domestic intercom to ask the maid for another pillow in the livingroom but a wartime walkie talkie calling in reinforcements from the General in command.

Cru & the Local Church

2006-03-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

As Rev has been writing the past couple days, some things he has mentioned have got me thinking about the role that we as Campus Crusade have and the role that the church as a whole has. Some crucial questions come up in regards to discipleship; namely, are we as Campus Crusade to be responsible for the FULL discipleship of all believers that come across our path, or people that accept Christ through our ministry? Or is the local church to play a certain role in their growth and discipleship? Is it really a big deal that our students get involved in a local church?

Jim had some great thoughts in his previous post, and I believe Rev gave his answer in his post in saying we should "outsource discipleship vampires" he's saying the local church plays a great role in the discipleship of the believer. This is because as Campus Crusade we are highly focused on evangelism and proclamation of the gospel in various ways, and therefore we do not spend time focusing on defending critical doctrine, teaching on God's heart for the poor, doing ministry to families or teaching about godly parenting, and so on. My heart certainly falls in with Rev's perspective, and I believe historically this has been Crusade's stance on partnering with the local church.

Jesus' mandate to his people in the Great Commission is to "make disciples", which includes "teaching them to observe all the I have commanded." Paul said in Acts 20 that he "did not shrink from declaring to (the Ephesians) the whole counsel of God." I think these verses clearly show how wide the teaching that EVERY believer needs really is. I believe only the local church was designed (by Jesus) to do this, with its elders, pastors and teachers, evangelists, and all the other spiritual gifts. We, as a parachurch organization, are simply not capable of nor have the time and resources for doing this. We are not how Jesus set up his church.

I fear with the "instantaneous win/build/send" mentality that is getting so stressed today in Crusade in many places we are de-emphasizing the importance of the local church in a believer's (new or old) life. I fear that full discipleship could be being marginalized for the sake of planting new movements and desiring to see movements everywhere (which I love by the way).

I think we are at a great place in Crusade to partner with the local church in serving them by training their students in evangelism and giving them an outlet for gospel living with the students that are around them every day. Churches have the resources, the vital doctrinal teaching, the experienced and seasoned saints, the love an fellowship of a long-term body, and the "whole counsel of God" that all of our students need. Our movements simply do have what students fully need to become a biblical disciples. But churches do.

I am realizing that I have marginalized the local church in my past involvement with Crusade,a nd for that I am very sorry. But our staff team is realizing how there are such great opportunities to cast vision to pastors and church leaders about how God could use their students on our campus to reach the lost and sell out for the kingdom. College campuses are such compelling places to see life change and world change happen! Jesus-loving pastors should be thrilled (I would think) to see their people involved in reaching the lost in such a place. We can so bless the churches in our area!

So this is just a plea for the importance of the local church in every believer's life. Yes, I believe it is a big deal that we get our students involved in these churches. And I think the universal body of Christ (and the lost!) have a lot to gain in our partnerships together and as we honor their leadership.

Acts 19 and 3 Thoughts for Campus Ministry

2006-03-23T18:38:00.000-08:00

Alisha asked, “How should evangelism look on our campus in light of this? How could we take it to the next level and see more students coming to know Christ?”

My thoughts on Paul’s consistent ministry in Acts 19-20 is that he was very thorough in making disciples of all sorts of people and equipping many of them to lead. I’m thinking of how campus ministries can refocus on thorough evangelization and discipleship rather than the cheap/quick versions that do not connect with lost students who have little or no Christian background.

I have three thoughts jumbling in my head. These by no means are perfect, refined or complete thoughts or suggestions. But i’ll just float these three balloons for sake of discussion.

We Must Pre-Evangelize Uber-Pagans, Evangelize Pagans, and Disciple the Disciples

I heard from a missionary that it takes the average Muslim to Christian convert hearing the gospel 7-8 times before it makes sense to them and they come to Christ. Lets recognize that as our culture drifts away from a Christian background it will take more time to evangelize campus Pagans. We must be careful not to spread our gospel witness too thin and ignore the fact that some people may require more evangelistic investment than in earlier generations. We must be increasingly patient and must not assume that we ought to see instant fruit with those very unfamiliar with basic gospel presuppositions. Given Paul's example of teaching for two years in Ephesus, it seems to me that Paul at times would give a comprehensive gospel discourse (see the book of Romans!) when appropriate but also he could deliver it in a few choice words like on Mars Hill (Acts 17). We too should be equiped to teach short-gospel and long-gospel. Sometimes, people need the 4 Laws other times people may need the 5 week "follow-up" course (or something else) before they truly understand the gospel for the first time. Only part of issue is transferability. The other part is sufficient gospel clarity to those who need it. Those who are unfamiliar with the gospel message and the christian worldview will need a much more substantial presentation and more patience from us.

We Must be Gospel Teaching Machines!

All aspects of ministry should have the gospel present, prevalent, and pervasive in all that we do. Just as the Christian life is lived from [not for] a relationship with God thought he gospel, so everything we do must keep the gospel clear. Having the gospel central in all ministry will make a gospel saturating incubator out of all campus ministry funtions. Uber-pagans need to be incubated in gospel truth and so do marginal Christians. This can only happen when it is clear that no part of Crusade and true Christian spirituality is possible apart from embracing the exclusive gospel of Jesus Christ. We must accept that is might be unpopular but it is the only way to faithfully make the gospel clear to those who are spiritual but still remain unbelievers.

We must Outsource Discipleship Vampires

There will be more and more disciples that will ask for more and more resources, ministry and time from Staff and Student leaders. It is not wrong but natural for believers to desire more teaching and substance as they grow. I don't know if you ever met a discipleship vampire before but they are the students who expect to get most of their spiritual nutrition from Crusade rather than the local church. Vampires who are hungry for more should be filling up in a faithful church that is "teaching everything [Christ has] commanded". Crusade cannot afford to do the job of the local church. So, lets reconize that a healthy local church helps Crusade keep the ministry focused on its mission to communicate the gospel to the lost. We must make sure the hungry vampires are outsourced and drinking from a gospel centered local church. If a healthy local church is teaching the Bible then students will see the value of Crusade's gospel centrality and be a helpful part of the movement. Let them drink deeply at a faithful local church so they can give away their life to college students who are parched and dying without Christ.

It seems some people want to do the opposite with discipleship vampires! This is yet another reason why I believe the fast multiplying campus church model fails. If you want to be faithful to the Great Commission hungry Christians need to be taught everything (Matt 28:20). Either these campus “churches” will have to slow down and start teaching EVERYTHING or they will starve the Christians of teaching. If discipleship vampires are not feeding from Bible teaching they will feed on the poison this culture and be a host of all sort of false doctrines. Either way, fast growing campus churches will either have to slowdown and be more biblical or unfaithfully starve its own members and host doctrinal diseases.

Ministy Models, lets think ACTS 19 Movements

2006-03-16T01:58:00.000-08:00

Since I am about to post some thoughts on what Acts can/can't teach about campus ministry i have put in two short paragraphs to clarify a biblical approach to interpretation. Obviously a lot of error has emerged by improperly interpreting and applying the book of Acts. My hope here is to glean some campus ministry wisdom the examples of Peter and Paul in Acts without butchering the Bible to make it serve my own ends.

First, of all what we read in Acts is descriptive not prescriptive. That is to say, the way that we understand and apply Acts to understanding campus ministry is not to DO whatever we see people in Acts doing. But rather, we must understand why the Apostles and evangelists did this or that. The better we understand why from the context and more prescriptive portions of Scripture [Epistles] the better we can get into the mind of Paul and make Scripturally sound choices in our ministry philosophy.
Second, Campus Movements are not churches and campus staff are not apostles. Some of you might say, “duh” but I say this to be clear. So Peter and Paul starting churches are not the same as you or I starting a campus movement. But, I will say this, it may not be on same level of work, but it IS in the same ballpark and holds similarities. Therefore, because we seek to have a biblical campus ministry biblical examples of church planting should help us think about campus ministry philosophy.

So here is my vision for encouraging campus staff and students.

To start off my question is, why does it sometimes seem like campus movement models seem to resemble Acts 2 and not Acts 19?

My point is that all of this talk about making the gospel very short and clear, with short followup and “coaching” of new believers. Only to quickly send them to launch new movements in a very fast paced, expedient; very Acts 2 way. It is common [in my experience] to use the narratives of Pentecost and the early church to develop vision and models for campus ministry. I seems attractive right? People come to Christ left-and-right. Fellowships gather all around, they meet in public, “movements are everywhere” and the gospel is “out-of-hand” in Jerusalem. That is what we want on campus, right? Of course it is, and I would like that kind of fruit too.

But, before regional or national leadership starts encouraging staff and student leaders to go win converts and send them to build movements I simply want to raise two questions.

First, will we overemphasize a quick gospel a light follow-up to our detriment as we try to send out baby Christians to leadership and movement planting?
Second, will we lay unreasonable and unbiblical burdens on Staff and students to attempt something impossible?

I think we can gain great models for campus ministry in the book of Acts. But its not to be found in Acts 2, or 8 or other popular movement-explosion passages. I have deep suspicion that an Acts2-like Movements Everywhere ideas unreasonably assumes the spiritual soil of the campus similar to what Apostles found at first in Jerusalem. Instead our campuses are much closer to the spiritual soil Paul faced in his missionaries journeys; namely among the Greeks of Ephesus in Acts 19.

Here is my point. Peter and the other disciples found themselves around a God fearing, somewhat- messianic, people who knew Scripture and was seeking God. They were missing one thing; namely Jesus the Messiah. So we should not be surprised to see that Peter’s great sermon that brought in 3000 new believers is very simply connecting the dots by showing how Jesus super-fulfills the messianic and Old Testament expectations. Then Peter simply told them how salvation is open to all through repentance and faith in Christ. This goverened how the sermon was preached. It also shows how great the fruit was that came from the soil of biblical knowledge and readiness that the Jews already had at that time to the gospel. subsequently we see the gospel spreading quickly and powerfully among the Jews at Jerusalem early in Acts as a Movement Everywhere like picture. And from this we should be inspired. But should we expect evangelism and movement building to look like this on a secular campus? NO.

Now consider another Acts example. Acts 19, Paul sets foot in Asia. He finds some disciples who don’t quite get the gospel. So Paul teaches them the gospel. Then Paul takes those disciples and goes to those who have biblical knowledge in the synagogue and teaches for about 3 months. Next Paul goes out to the streets and shares with the uber-pagans EVERY DAY for TWO YEARS! After two years, Paul has planted a self-sustaining church. Not only is Paul patient in evangelism during this time but we also see in Acts 20 that he constantly discipled believers and young spiritual leaders during this time. Paul took time to teach believers and especially the elders who would lead the church after Paul has left. Paul took a lot of time for evangelism. And he took a lot of time to develop their spiritual leadership of believers. He neither abandoned one over the other.

So, lets do a quick situational analysis of your campus ministry: Which one of these stories seems to best represent the environement we find in our campus minsitry?

Are we around homogeneous bible-literate God fearers like Peter Acts 2? Or do we see a handful Christians (who sort-of-get-it), some bible familiar spiritual people, and lots and lots of uber-pagans who don’t even understand many of the basic truths that the gospel stands on. I do not know about you, but the Acts 19 description sounds a lot more like my campus!

So, how should we encourage Staff and student leaders to win-build-send and seek to plant movements everywhere? Taking note of my preambles I’ll just say: Something like Paul in Acts 19. And not like rapid fire multiplication examples found in Acts 2 and Acts 8.

What is my vision for ministry in a diverse campus among Christians, bible familiar spirituality, and bible ignorant uber-pagans?

Future campus ministry is NOT like Peter's ministry to the homogenious, godfearing, Scripture knowing Jews. And it is increasingly LESS like what Campus Crusade knew in the Bible literate generations of the 50s 60s and 70s. Now Bible illiterate pagans and uber-pagans are more prevelent than ever. So what kind of ministry should we encourage staff to do?

I’ll just quote what it looked like for Paul and leave the details and contextualization to your imagination.

[19:1,7] Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples…. There were about twelve men in all.

[19:8] he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

[19:9] he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

[19:10] This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

(Acts 20:18-20) Paul Speaking to the elders of the Ephesians Church: "You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (20:26) I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God."

This is already a long post, but I bet you can draw a practical ministry model from Acts 19-20 without my help. What do you guys think? Is that what successful campus ministry will look like?

We Become What We Behold

2006-03-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

The past few days I have spent time with students in our movement, and I have spent time observing my own heart in light of our culture, and a profound fact has come to mind. I have seen that we are all so addicted to television and internet, and I feel that our lives so often revolve around them. I find myself moving to be on my laptop when I am in a group of people "just hanging out." So what's the big deal? Well this verse, 2 Corinthians 3:18, shows us a vital principle (I originally heard this from John Piper):

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another."

The priniciple is simple; as believers we are growing in Christ and being changed into being like Him as we "behold the Lord." WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD. And how do we behold the Lord? Most obviously in the Bible (John 1:1, 2 Timothy 3:16-17), but also in the preaching of the Bible (1 Tim 4:13), in prayer (Phil 4:5-7), in fellowship with believers (Eph 4), and in God/Christ-centered resources and books.

So we become like Christ, we are shaped in His image more and more, loving what He loves, living like He lived, and trusting God like He did, as we study Him, hear about Him, talk to Him, and learn all we can about Him. WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD.

But what if we are not beholding Christ? What if the majority of our time (our free time from class and work) is spent on television and the internet? WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD. There is nothing on TV that will draw us closer to Christ. Perhaps we can use our minds to direct some stories to God-centered thoughts, but the vast majority of TV and the internet is presenting to us a Godless and Christless world, numbing our minds (my mind!) to the beauty of Christ and His kingdom, and how much He loves the glory of God coming into people lives and how much He loves people seeing who He is for the first time in the gospel.

WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD.

And so what are we beholding? Are we spending most of our time beholding the TV? We will become like those Godless sources. I have seen this in my own life in times away from the Word and in hours lost on TV. I have not defeated sin in my life by watching more TV. Infinite joy is offered us in losing our lives in Jesus and His mission and in studying Him, and I settle for incomplete joy, or no joy at all.

I want to become like Jesus. I want to care about people more than the random websites. I want to love the glory of God and rejoice in it the way Jesus did (John 17:1-5), to where He gave His life for people and to show how great His Father is. And I want our movement to be like this! I want people to see Christ in Campus Crusade at Pomo. I want us to be a loving, risk-taking people for the cause of Christ in the world. I want our movement to be a counter-cultural, joy-filled bunch of college students reaching every sub-group on campus!

So let us forsake the things that keep us from this. Oh may God grant us all the grace to more "behold the glory of the Lord" that we may "be changed from one degree of glory to another."

More On Compressing the Build in Win-Build-Send

2006-03-11T08:37:00.004-08:00

Thanks to Old Truth Blog for their recent posting, Do Large Followings Indicate 'Success'?

It is an excellent post worth reading!

In it he quotes Charles Spurgeon from Soul Winning:

What is the real winning of a soul for God? So far as this is done by instrumentality, what are the processes by which a soul is led to God and to salvation? I take it that one of its main operations consists in instructing a man that he may know the truth of God. Instruction by the gospel is the commencement of all real work upon men's minds. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Teaching begins the work, and crowns it, too.

One of the hallmarks of Campus Crusade is the Great Commission. Twice in this passage it talks about what we are to do when we “go”--teach all nations and teach them to observe all the things Jesus commanded!

Now, that leads me ask you.....is this the portion of our work that we should seek to compress?

Instant Spiritual Leadership

2006-03-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

In the comments of the last post Alisha said, "The students I see walk out of our movement (involved new believers and those who came in believers) ready to be a "Christ-Centered Laborer" are those that have been discipled and poured into for years. Those that accept Christ and stay on the fringes never really seem to get to the laborer part."

I agree, this exactly what I see as well. Kristie also brought up 1 Timothy 5:11, though it refers to appointing church leaders it is appropriate for campus ministry to "not be hasty" in launching students into teaching or directional or visional leadership roles. Next to that I would add 1 Timothy 3:6 which does more than just say "don't be hasty" in setting up leadership but warns what could happen if we are too expedient in putting young believers in leadership. In context, Paul is talking about qualifications for church elders [overseers]. And even though shepherding leadership in campus ministry is not in anyway on the same level as a biblical eldership in principle it should still guide campus ministry leadership. Here is what the passage says, "He [the potential elder] must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil". In other words, we need to see new believers walk with Jesus as humble obedient disciples for a time before we determine he is faithful and competent to lead. Solid Jesus-obedient servants with a gift for leadership should be given leadership. But to appoint leaders too carelessly makes it possible for Paul's strong words to come true: "...he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil"

I believe in spiritual multiplication. I love that we set out to “win - build - send”. But if for the sake of expedient spiritual multiplication we throw unprepared, undiscipled, untested, unqualified leaders into leadership we put new converts at risk and our ministry at risk. Moreover, we run the danger of ignoring the clear wisdom and warning of the Apostle Paul who knew more about spiritual growth and multiplication than we ever will.

This brings up another issue in campus ministry. Not only is there talk about expedient multiplication models but some even advocate it as a form of “campus church planting”. For possible examples of this, look here and here and here. My question for this strategy is how can that possibly square with 1 Timothy 3 and 1 Timothy 5? I will let the question linger for now. Anyone is welcome to pick it up from here.

Lastly, I really long for us to talk about how we staff and student leaders can encourage other staff and student ministries to join with us in pursuing a more effective God honoring ministry. Times are different and our campus ministries are on the frontlines of the ever-increasing challenges of a new post-modern and post-Christian America. It is not the 1950s anymore. We need more care, patience and clarity in leading a gospel-centered ministry then ever before. This is the worst time to embrace hype over clearity. So then, what is the answer???

Instant Discipleship

2006-03-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. It seems there is a new idea floating around (similar to Rev's discussion earlier) that suggests conversion, discipleship, and being sent all happen at once. Win/Build/Send as one action. I've heard this idea several times over the last 6 months as motivation for how our ministries will grow and expand.

Here's my questions: Has anyone seen this practically happen in their ministry and if so, what were the circumstances surrounding it?

I have been in full-time ministry for 5 years now and I could not think of one time where I have seen this happen. I have not seen a non-believer accept Christ, grow immediately in their faith, and instantly reach out with a heart to see movements or target areas successfully reached. I just haven't seen all 3 happen instantaneously. I have this fear that proponents of this concept will say it's because I'm too close-minded or not taking enough risks. Maybe so, I guess your comments will give me guidence.

I will say that regularly I see new believers sharing their faith and leading friends to Christ. I do see them growing in their faith over time and gaining a heart to be invovled with strategic ministry. I do seem them do it successfully in time, but not usually on their first attempt. What I haven't seen is a new believers ready to be sent out to launch ministries or lead instantly after they accept Christ.

More often I see new believers struggling with understanding forgiveness, learning to over come sexual addictions, having years of baggage to apply the gospel too, and generally taking time to shift their secular worldview to a biblical world view. In my experience, this takes time, God's amazing grace (first of course), and intentional discipleship.

This what I've seen, I'd love to hear from others and also hear any biblical basis for one way or another. This post is meant as a starter conversation more than a statement of beliefs. Can't wait to hear from you ...

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day Three

2006-03-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

Jim made it home Friday night around 10:30. He had an amazing time and was glowing (just normal glowing, not shekinah glowing). It was almost like when I picked him up after having knee surgery last spring. I thought he would be wiped out, but instead he was relaxed and ready to go back to work a new man. Of course that was due to the cortisone and painkillers coursing through his veins. Tonight, it was simply being around other men talking about staying the course and preaching the Gospel.

We sat a the kitchen nook and had a bowl of cereal while he told me the story of Steve Lawson who was forced to resign because they wanted him to switch to topical messages, rather than preach expositorily. Jim was mostly inspired by Steve's story of growing up hating reading. In fact in college he never read a book, but relied on Cliff notes! Yet now he reads extensively in order to have a resorvoir of knowledge from which to draw from for his teaching. (As I am writing this, Jim is in bed next to me finishing up the Da Vinci code....perhaps his last potboiler.)

Anyhow, as a wife, I can attest that the conference was deeply challenging and motivating for my husband. I haven't seen him come back from a conference feeling refreshed like this in a long time.

Okay, so here's some photos to tide you over until staff meeting.

Here is Mark Dever preaching.

These are CJ Mahaney's hands during worship. (Sort of noticable in this crowd, eh?)

And....drumroll...Jim found Tim Challies, who was gracious enough to oblige us with a picture. I am sure this in no way is an endorsement of our blog, or our writing. But Jim can testify that there is a nice guy behind the blog we appreciate so much.

Actually Jim got to spend more time talking to Doug at Coffee Swirls who was very friendly and helpful. He gave Jim some tips on being a better blogger, and to hopefully not be "just one click away from being jerk."

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day Two

2006-03-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

Jim left at 5am yesterday morning to head out to the conference. I got one quick call around dinner time when he told me he was still looking for Tim Challies. He even asked at the information booth, and these ladies said, "Oh, the blogger...." But his big news was that he got to meet CJ Mahaney and shake hands. He told him that you were all reading through The Cross-Centered Life together as a team and what a great impact it has had. CJ responded very sincerely, "You don't know how much that encourages me. Thank you so much for telling me."

It was about 10:30pm when I heard Jim coming up the stairs. He was so tired! But before his head hit the pillow, he showed me the 28 books he received as shwag. It told him to bring it to staff prayer on Monday for DJ and Paul to take a look-see.

He said Mohler was okay, but perhaps he was just too tired by the evening session to really absorb it.

That was all I got out of Jim before his head hit the pillow. This morning he was up and out of here by 5:00 again.

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day One

2006-03-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

Jim got home this evening from his first day at the Shepherd's conference. He went with the pastors and elders at our church. He said MacArthur's message on the centrality of the Gospel was awe-inspiring. He took them to Matthew 16 and said that this passage is a core text the marks for a true church. We need to be Cross-focused! He'll be sharing the MP3 when he gets back. You'll be encouraged. Here's a picture he snapped in the front row. The guys in coats and ties (I asked him if everyone had coats and ties and it was only these guys here) are the current seminary students who were there to sing "A Mighty Fortress." Jim had tears in his eyes the whole time.

You'll recognize PJ Tibayan and Dave Zareno in the bottom left of the picture, who both have spoken at our weekly meetings. Dave you know is a Cal Poly Pomona alum and was on staff with us here in the region. We had one great summer together at the now defunct Newport Project. Yeah, Dave says Jim taught him to disciple men, and Dave taught Jim how to surf.

Tomorrow Jim will be looking for Al Mohler and Mark Dever. If you want up close and personal coverage you will need to head on over to Challies.

Teen Sees Jesus in a Lava Lamp!

2006-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

The sad thing is I didn't have to search far to find this on Google. I just typed in "christian lava lamp", and voila! I was looking for the lava lamp that Alisha saw at a Christian bookstore, but this one obviously caught my eye. You can read the article here.

This post is dedicated to Purgatorio.

Lava Lamps and Cigars

2006-02-25T00:37:00.000-08:00

Let it be known that I neither hate lava lamps nor cigars (although my one instance with a cigar left me green and sick so I do dislike them a tad). What I am questioning is the connection of these items to an experience with Christ. You see, over the last few weeks I've been doing research on the Emergent Church (EC). I have discovered a lot of perplexing things, some that really concern me. I have concerns about the idea that doctrine is outdated, concerns about their extreme dislike of the modern day church, and concerns about their promotion of sensory worship experiences.

This is where the lava lamps and cigars come in. I saw posts suggesting the use of lava lamps and cigars to help you connect on a deeper level with God. I'm confused as to how these practices are getting mixed in and considered spiritual disciplines since they are not mentioned in the Bible anywhere. Look up lava lamp in a concordance, guess what ... nothing there. These may be extreme examples, but there are many other more accepted disciplines that are connected to the Emergent church. For example, using breath prayers, use of meditation, incense, and darkness, studying scripture through lectio divina, and many other contemplative spiritual exercises. All of these promote mystic spiritual "experiences" of worship, experiences that I find no where in scripture.

I want to challenge us to be cautious and look to the Word of God as our source of how to connect with God. What does the Word call us to do? Here are some I came up with, please add comments on others I missed, make sure to provide scriptural references.

Solitude: I see Jesus taking times away and getting alone.

Prayer: When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he didn't steer them towards breathing techniques or meditation, He share the Lords prayer which included praise, confession, and asking for provision and protection. In fact the bible says not to pray using meaningless repetition.

Study of the Word: Paul told Timothy to stay close to the truth that he had been taught and to watch for false teachers, we have a call to know and study the Word of God.

Fasting: Jesus himself said after He left, we would fast for His return.

I have a few final thoughts about the Emergent church, in an article, "Fad or Future" by Scot McKnight he outlines in easily readable terms an in depth description of the movement. He seems to be a supporter of the EC but does suggest some potential problems he thinks they will encounter. I'm shocked by his description of the EC as a "post-doctrine" and "post-bible study" movement. I wonder, how to do we know the Jesus we serve with out in depth bible study and doctrine to guide us?

Let me also say that not all Emergent Churches are created equal. I found another article by Ed Stetzer that classifies the EC into 3 different categories. It helped me remember that there is a lot of variety underneath the umbrella of the Emergent Church. Not all of them are moving towards these slippery slopes.

My reason for this post is to remind us that we need to be cautious and aware of these trends as we seek to be ministers of the gospel in our culture today. How far can we go to be all things to all people before we become like those just tickling the ears of our listeners? Everything we do should be inline with the Word of God and how it has called us to live and worship. It alone should be our measuring stick, because the gospel is far too beautiful to get missed as a side note in between the highs of a new trendy worship "experience" with God.

Final note: DJ and I started reading D.A. Carson's book, "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church", so far it's great. It's a VERY thorough discussion on the issues relating to this topic.

Buzz about a new Decentralized Multiplication Model

2006-02-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

I noticed a buzz in Campus Crusade circles lately about a vision and strategy for reaching the campus with the gospel. The strategy (put in my own words) is a decentralized multiplication of disciples. The way it works is that one student will reach two other students and become three; then this group will reach two more and become five students, then two students will go out and do the same as the first. These groups of disciples will multiply and eventually reach the entire campus. This model has been met with support and enthusiasm. I mean, Who doesn’t want a strategy that can effectively reach the entire campus? But when I hear that this is being proposed as a primary strategy for reaching the campus with the gospel a red flag goes up in my mind, and I’ll tell you why.

Miao of China

For the past fifteen years a house church movement that was started by several missionary groups has been sweeping through China. One people group, the Miao, has seen thousands of house churches spring up as they multiplied though this unreached group. These churches were spreading like wildfire and bringing the saving gospel to thousands of Chinese in a truly amazing movement; BUT a serious problem started to emerge. Since the house churches are independent, self-replicating, and decentralized, missionaries worried intensely as they saw false teachings slowly emerge out of these fast replicating churches. Missionaries couldn't teach the church or correct the problem and soon cults emerged from these house churches.

Now churches and cults spread side-by-side among the Miao. Missionaries were, and still are, unable to teach and re-align many churches that are being influenced by these these aberrant doctines. Missionaries cannot give adequate theologically training these churches so they that do not succumb to false teaching of cults. The reason is becuase the decentralized multiplicaiton model makes it near impossible to find and teach these churches adequatley. A leader of part of the underground house church movement among the Miao says this about Eastern Lightning, the fasted growing cult in China, “The threat of the Eastern Lightning is much worse than anything the Communists can do to us”. Reports of murder, coercion, kidnapping, torture, ritual molestation listed among the damage this cult commits in ravishing Christ's Church. Missionaries today are unable to disciple and theologically train house churches sufficiently and the prevelence of cults can only grow as they prey on unequipped house churches. Read more about this.

I think there is a lesson we can learn from this. Campus Crusade for Christ ministry on campus should be careful and biblical in its consideration to adopt decentralized viral-growth models as a primary way of reaching the campus. If there is no central source of teaching and discipleship and realignment then false teaching, an aberrant gospel, misalignment, and poor christian witness can creep in. Or maybe I should say WILL creep in to some degree.

We must not forget that alignment with Crusade vision is not a once-and-for-all deal. Continual realignment is just as necessary as initial alignment for students laborers. This is clear in my own development as it took me less than a year as a new believer to “get-on-board” with Crusade vision and purpose, but if it was not for other leaders [both staff and students] discipling me and working through alignment issues through the years I doubt I would still be a committed student leader now as a Senior. I’m serious, I could have fallen off the boat in a dozen ways. This is especially true with a new believer who needs continual teaching, discipleship and alignment. And I doubt that a viral-growth / decentralized-multiplication model can provide the discipleship and alignment needed to turn a truly Lost Student into a committed Christ Centered Laborer.

For a biblical example you can look at the Apostle Paul. Doesn’t it surprise you how quickly the church that Paul planted at Corinth were suckered into all kinds of weird teaching and false beliefs? How did Paul deal with this? The answer was to visit Corinth, to send Apollos, to write letters of instruction to correct them. The church at Galatia is another example of this. Though the Galatians embraced the gospel at first, it wasn’t long after being left alone that they began to sit under teachers of a false gospel. Paul needed to correct them, and thank God he did.

Campus Crusade is committed to using effective ministry models, and we should be, but we need to make sure our models are biblically informed. The Apostles were always traveling and visiting the churches to correct, teach, and encourage. While Crusade is not a church but a para-church ministry, we still must not use this to excuse ourselves form the clear example and warnings of Scripture. If a believer is doing ministry with us he needs to be constantly ministered to, aligned and discipled; this is not possible with a decentralized viral model alone.

We were not commissioned to make believers (merely) but to make disciples. Crusade’s vision is not to turn lost students into saved students, but to turn them into Christ centered laborers. Galatia needed to be re-centered on the gospel of Jesus, their salvation was is jeopardy without Paul’s guiding and correcting involvement, we too need to keep disciple multiplication under the teaching, discipling and aligning guidance of Staff and mature student leaders. If we don’t, miss-alignment, poor teaching, false gospels, poor public witness will emerge. And biblically, we leaders will be held accountable for that. Again, a decentralized viral growth model will not fulfill our mission statement, or the Great Commission, among lost students who need continual training, realignment, and discipleship by experienced leaders.

On Why Man Could Not Have Written the Bible

2006-02-14T17:20:00.000-08:00

In describing the supernatural traits of Scripture Lewis Chafer, a president of Dallas Seminary wrote:

"Who among blinded humanity is the fiction writer capable of originating the conceptions of the triune God of all eternity that are spread upon the pages of Scriptures? Who among men has designed the peculiar and perfect balance of the parts each person of the Godhead takes in redemption, or the divine character in its consistant and unatlerable display of infinite holiness and infinite love- divine judegments, the divine valuation of things including the angelic hosts and evil spirits? Who among men has been not only able to conceive of such a fabrication of interdependent notions, but has been able to make them express themselves perfectly in an ongoing history which, being fortuitous, is, after all, only a sham- a hypocritical, disingenous counterfeit of truth? How absurd is the assumption that unaided man could write the Bible if he chose to do so! But if man did not originate the Bible, then God did, and because of that fact its authority must be recognized."

I love reading things that make you go "That's right!" and make you more sure in your faith.

Yearning for True Conversions?

2006-02-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, what do you think of this post by Mark Dever (a pastor in D.C. that many of us respect greatly). Here is what he wrote on the "Together for the Gospel" blog in regards to what he asks people to pray for. How do you think this relates to our movement? Do you agree with what he describes as "true conversions"?

"When people ask me what they can pray for me and our church about, I very often ask for prayer that we would see more conversions. I thank God for the conversions we have seen, but I would like to see more, for God's glory!

I'm not, however, a big fan of the big conversion numbers that are reported by some evangelical churches. I don't believe them. I think they discourage real evangelism and true conversions and actually make our towns and cities more difficult places to evangelize.

I remember one friend telling me years ago that their church had had over 200 baptisms in the previous year. I was stunned! I asked him "Is the town changed?" He didn't understand. "What do you mean?" he asked. I told him that was about as many conversions as Edwards saw in the Great Awakening in Northampton. As I kept asking questions, it became clear that he didn't really know the people, he didn't know if they were still (months later) going to his church, the church (with a couple of thousand in attendance) was not noticeably larger, and those being baptized were mostly children of the church (another topic). My point is, 200 baptized was just normal business for them, and it made no difference.

I pray for conversions that make a difference! It's a little-known fact that George Bernard Shaw's first published writing (when he was nineteen) was a letter to Public Opinion belittling a Dublin revival staged by the renowned American evangelist D. L. Moody. Shaw was not an enthusiast for the evangelist. He said that crowds attended such services merely for free entertainment, and those who were converted became ‘highly objectionable members of society.’

I can't imagine Shaw would even notice most of our "converts." Pray for conversions--real conversions, conversions that matter, conversions that result in changed people--and more conversions--for the glory of God!"

The Gospel and Culture

2006-02-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent post that follows with what we have been talking about here at LFF. It is from TeamPyro regarding how people get upset about TV shows that mock Christianity. Apparently someone has started a letter writing campaign against the show Will and Grace because Britney Spears's guest character mocks the crucifixion. Horrendous? Yes. But, like, what are we to expect from unbelievers?

It reminds me of Mike Erre's talk at EJ05---our faith should not be reduced to getting upset over whether or not the checker at Walmart says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. This is more egregious, but is it more surprising? I don't think so. Don't we know that without Christ we actually enemies of God? What would be the point of us writing letters to tell them to stop doing outwardly what they really are inwardly. By only demanding an outward response we are simply making hypocrites.

Instead we need to preach Christ crucified and calling people to repentence. That is the ministry of reconciliation, not hypocrisy.

Consider this statement from James Spurgeon of Team Pyro :

Brothers, we have not been called to clean up the natural man and his society and make him more presentable or more palatable. We have been called to proclaim the gospel. Our culture cannot and will not be transformed into the image of Christ for the glory of God in any other way.

And this:

Sinners cannot be reformed, they must be re-born. Therefore, society cannot be reformed, it must be re-born one sinner at a time.

What do you think?

Update on Indonesian Sunday School Teachers

2006-02-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

For EJ05, our conference last December, our team was in charge of setting up a room for students to come and spend time in prayer during the conference. We set up small tables, each with a single lamp and a short story of a Christian who had suffered for their faith. Along with the story were some thought provoking questions intended to help guide a person in reflection in prayer. Our goal was to allow students to consider their own commitment and faith from the stand point of suffering for the Gospel. It was also a chance to introduce them to others that have suffered for Christ--a reality of which many believers in the U.S. remain unaware.

You may recall one of the stories we highlighted was of three women who were trial for teaching Sunday School in Indonesia. They had run classes for children in which Muslim parents had to sign a permission slip for their children to attend. The Christian women on trial had even taken pictures of the parents with their children signing the paper to show the judge. However, the court ruled against them as well as striking down recent appeals. They have already served 8 months of their 3 year sentence. What is hardest for these women is being separated from their own families and children.

Please join me in praying for them and their children. I think I could manage being in jail (barely), but being separated for so long from my husband and children would tear me apart. It must also be difficult for the children to wonder why their mothers have to be in jail---what a test of faith for them! They need our prayers as well.

I’ll put the link to the rest of the story in World Magazine. You will also interested in other stories below of persecution around the world. One is of a pastor in Istanbul who was beaten for not converting to Islam, but kept answering “Jesus is Lord!” And this pastor has only been a Christian for a little over a year.

Sobering isn’t it.
Remember those who are in prison, as though you are in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you are also in the body.--Hebrews 13:3

Link to Article

Balancing the Tension

2006-02-04T23:13:00.000-08:00

I so look forward to our staff team devotionals on Friday mornings. I respect all you guys and your thoughts and knowledge of the Word on these matters. I like using C.J. Mahaney's Cross Centered Life as a jumping point for great discussion. I do wish Kristie and Rev were there to add to the conversation. I was thinking as we were discussing salvation, eternal security, confession of sin, and how to handle those that we know and love, who appear to not be walking with the Lord. I’m inclined to just give a quick answer. But it requires further thought. We found ourselves with another one of those issues in the Christian walk that is held in tension. Similar to Phil 2:12-13, To work out our faith with fear and trembling and yet on the other hand, realizing that it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So which is it? Its actually both in tension or balanced.

In the same way when we venture to guess where a person stands with God we can look at a person’s works as evidence of faith and venture to think that they may be saved. But then DJ reminded us of Matthew 7:21-23 where Jesus warns those that claim to have done so many works in His name that Jesus’ response is, “I never knew you.” So even though a person has demonstrated works they still may be lost. We come back to the heart. Motives. And frankly each of us must scrutinize our lives as David did in Ps 139. What was that you shared about Piper’s prayer each night DJ? And what about our precious students? How exactly do we exhort them to examine their lives? Kristie, do you have something to add from your reading of Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections? Seems to me that the Gospel must be kept continually before us. We are so easily distracted.

Practical Application

2006-02-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

This started as a comment to DJ's post on the Gospel being Central, but it got too long. So, I thought I'd just put it up as another post.

I had one practical thought on how to keep the gospel central in our lives. I remember from Pipers book "When You Don't Desire God", that we need to be preaching the gospel to ourselves every day, all day!

So that when we are frustrated for example at waiting in traffic on the 10, that instead of being mad, we should be thinking about the reality of the gospel and how we've been saved. Reminding ourselves that Christ died for us and suffered greatly to provide a way to bring us back to himself. We start thinking about others around us who probably don't know him yet, or countries in the 10/40 window who have never heard this great news. We are reminded of who we once were before He opened our eyes and where we would be with out him. All of the sudden we no longer are frustrated but we are filled with indescribable joy at the thought of knowing Christ. It changes EVERYTHING. The gospel isn't just for non-believers, it changes our lives on a daily basis if we mediate on it and keep it central.

That's a simple example, but keeping the gospel central means that everything in our lives from big to little is centered on a gospel perspective and we seek to live that out.

Another example from Piper... one of his kids asked why they had to study spelling. His answer in summary was, God is the greatest communicator of all and in order to comminicate about Him to others, we need to learn to spell and be able to comunicate to others as best as we possibly can. WOW ~ Spelling too can be gospel-centered and for the Glory of God! Maybe answering questions in this fashion is one way to teach people this truth.

Saturday Morning Blogging

2006-02-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

Alisha's First Post

Thanks for all the great posts we have up all ready. Great idea Krisite! I thought I would post up some of the comments from the Porn Nation outreach last week. It's interesting to hear all the different comments students made after the program. I only have a small portion of the comment cards, I'd love to hear comments from others if you guys have time.

Thanks, this changed my views on God and sex
- Sig Ep

Pretty convicting. Thanks for keeping me accountable.
-Christian at Event

This program really changed some of my views and thoughts. Very influencing
- Random Male Engineering Student

Personally, I think it's is fine to watch porn ... I have met over 200 porn stars and yes, I watch porn ... But, I do not let it take control of my life or ruin my life. I know what my priorities are and do not let porn ruin my life. There is absolutely no way you can destroy porn, it's too powerful.
- Residence Hall Student

Fascinating. Isn't this the point of what Michael was talking about, you never think it will happen to you?

Praise God for over 600 students coming out to an event on campus! I also wanted to thank and applaud all of the students who worked so hard on this event. I've never seen our movement come together in this fashion and pursue a goal with such determination. Publicity was incredible and I really believe that all 20,000+ students on campus were exposed in some way to this event.

Successful outreach? Of course, remember the definition of successful evangelism, "stepping out in faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaving the results to God." I'd say that applies here too! Please continue to pray as we do follow up and trust God to bring students to Himself.

Have a great weekend!

Hello From Kristie!

2006-02-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the opening posts. "Emergent shurch"--I love it.

Okay, I am sitting here on a Friday night. Jim is at an Elder meeting at church until late, so I thought I would pop a quick little post before I head to bed.

It's been a busy day, so I admit I have nothing deep to say right now. I kept thinking of amazing blog articles I could write as I went through my day doing laundry, dishes, errands, working out, school with the kids...but now I am so tired, I can't remember them! So many things went undone today. I didn't get to language study with the family today (although when Erika made Chris a PBJ, he said "spah-see-ba!"). Nor did I get to clearing Jim's One Card like I promised! Didn't do my One Year Bible reading.

Sigh.

I even tried some blogger hacks to the template, but couldn't get them to work. Spent too much time messing with that. I did add our vision statement to the sidebar. A CCC disclaimer needs to be added soon as well.

Concerning the addition of links, how 'bout we do this: each of you could send me your top three links (blog or otherwise) and I will have your name with your top three links underneath. Let me know what you think.

Love you guys...

BTW, since many of us are Together for the Gospel fans, did you catch the Star Trek connection over at Purgatorio?

The Gospel as Central

2006-02-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

DJ's up!

Wow great posts guys. Thanks for sharing about how Jesus entered into Lissa's life through the gospel and changed her. Isn't it amazing that when people first come to Christ they think that having a full-time job where you get to share the gospel, this life-changing news of Christ, is the greatest thing ever? Amazing.

Having the gospel impact Lissa brings up something we have been talking about as a staff team, how the gospel is central to EVERYTHING we do as believers. What does that mean? Well, the Book of Romans is a perfect example.

Among encouraging the Romans (whom he has never met at this point) Paul wants the Romans to help him on his future missionary journey to Spain.

"I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you..." Romans 15:24

So what does Paul do? He spends ELEVEN CHAPTERS explaining the GOSPEL! What?!?
"...I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." Romans 1:15

Remember, these are BELIEVERS, people that have already embraced Christ in the gospel. And Paul wants one: to encourage them, and two: help them be a part of his ministry of sharing the gospel. So what does he do? He explains the gospel for 11 chapters! Amazing! Read it yourself and see!

So what can Crusade at Cal Poly learn from this? Well, the gospel must be how we grow in love for people and for the lost. Seeing the glory of Christ in the gospel must be what motivates us go to the nations to share Him. The gospel must be what helps us see how sinful and needy we are of Christ. The gospel must be what motivates us to do crazy things like talk to our classmates about Him. In sum, the gospel is central to everything we do as believers, and everything we do in Crusade at Cal Poly!

So study the gospel! Study the beauty of Jesus in the gospel! Read Romans! And let's go tell others about Him at Cal Poly!

Cowgirls with Two Slurs

2006-02-03T03:39:00.000-08:00

This is Rev reporting in.

I started today very excited about sharing the gospel in follow-up appointments after the Porn Nation outreach. However, things got discouraging when I found out that my oh-so-precious 9 contacts with phone numbers were whittled down to 6 (one contact went into another stack and two others were already involved with Crusade). What further bummed me out was that the three people I got a hold of didn’t want to meet. It was rough. I was really geared up to see some fruit from this outreach but it didn’t happen today (for me anyway). I sat around kinda bummed out and feeling rather useless the rest of the day… well almost.

It was getting late and Donald, Caleb and I were outside Home Brew Coffee Company after it closed. Our theological topic came to the subject of the emergent church. Midway through my ramblings two middle aged women dresssed up like cowgirls waltzed in to join our conversation. The less inebriated of the two insisted I go on talking about the “emergent shurch”... and then she started debating with Donald about the deity of Christ! Caleb had to catch the other girl who was about as stable as a fat man on a unicycle.

Their story (we discovered) was that these "cowgirls" spent the evening trying to hook-up with two dudes who ditched them because these guys appearantly were married. Then these ladies found themselves stranded and alone without a way back to the hotel. So they decided to remedy the situation by joining a theological conversations with strangers across the street! Donald and I decided to drive them to their hotel in Pomona. We explained the gospel as best we could on the ride over. The talkative lady’s feedback amounted to a 4-point presentation of the Davinci-Code coupled with nasty burps from her associate. As we walked them through the hotel parking lot Donald taught one about the importance of Jesus’ death for our sins and I taught the other about the importance of using legs for balance. We gave them a tract before we left and prayed and debriefed on our way back.

I was humbled tonight! I was so eager to share the gospel today but this was not what I have envisioned. I suppose in the end I can be content that I got to talk to someone about the gospel and make Jesus look good in word and deed.

Lissa with Two S's

2006-02-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

The first time I went sharing with Jim I was kind of nervous. We shared by the library with a very sweet girl name Lissa. She was sweet and obviously burdened. She said that she really, really wanted to believe but just couldn't and she didn't really know why. Jim did a great job of trying to connect with her heart. We got her phone number and I called and she agreed to meet with me.

She seemed so afraid to jump on the idea of a relationship with God for fear of being hypocritical--knowing that she would probably blow it because she was unable to live the Christian life... she's already tried. I shared with her about how much God wanted a relationship with her-- that he was fully aware of her sin and that she would continue to sin, but he loved her and wanted to be reconciled with her. I agreed with her that she was unable to live the Christian life and so was everyone else. I told her about the Holy Spirit. She seemed really hesitant and confused. I was so moved by her reverence for what we were talking about. I explained the whole chocolate milk thing and we bonded over how much we liked chocolate. It began to click and she got excited, but she was pretty "works" oriented still--talking about how she didn't know if she wanted to "live the Christian life."

She came to my Bible study and then met with me again. This time we went over the first follow-up session: Going from uncertainty to confidence. Lissa is really smart and was able to interpret the passage in I John easily. She was excited but overwhelmed with her sinfulness and the consequences--the cross. With misty eyes she said, "But I should die for my sin... I deserve to die... not Jesus... I don't want him to die for me... I feel so bad." I was moved and refreshed by her brokenness and told her that God is most glorified when we are secure in his forgiveness. She brightened. Then she went on about "Wow, God is really great!" and I said that's why we need to praise him and tell others about him. She grew in excitement at the thought of telling other people about what she was learning. I drove her back to the dorms and gave her a worship CD that Paul had made.

I just met with her today and again I am revived by her humble and thoughtful attitude. We talked about moving from "unworthiness to forgiveness." It's as if the follow-up series was made just for her. Again, she got all the points and made the connections--she's really sharp. She is looking forward to next week and learning how she get the power to not sin as much--since she knows that she is unable in her own strength.

She told me that she loved the worship CD and that she cried and felt great peace when she listened to it, "God is so great." There were so many other 'lightbulbs' that went off for her, but the biggest one today was when she said, "Well, now I know that I'm forgiven for everything and I always will be. I just want to to stop sinning because it's so sad." Today she moved from fear of losing her relationship with God to desiring to live purely so that she can have deep fellowship with God. She's so awestruck with Jesus, it makes me emotional to hear her speak about it.

To top off my afternoon with her, she asked me who I came to Pomona with Crusade. I told about how I got involved with Crusade as a freshmen at UC Davis and the progression of my growth and involvement. She listened but then clarified, "No, how did you come to work at Pomona?" I told her about how I'm on staff and I'm a missionary to college students. She was like, "Wow! This is what you do all the time? For a living?? That's so cool." She marveled that I get to do such fulfilling work and do so much good AND do it with my husband. She said, "you really enjoy this a lot, huh?" and I replied, "I LOVE it!" I did tell her that it wasn't always fun but in light of eternity, it was good. So aside from praying that she continues to grow and trust God, I'm praying that she joins staff one day and finds other Lissa's.

The other thing that strikes me about Lissa is that she is captured with not only the events of the gospel, but also with Jesus himself. She is in awe of everything to do with the gospel. Please pray for her... that she would continue to accept God's love and forgiveness.

Letters from the Field

Time To Say Goodbye

We NEVER get beyond the gospel

We NEVER get beyond the gospel

Who Stole the Men?

CCC Prez has the "Inside Story"

Missional Evangelism from iMonk

A little encouragement...

Fifties Evangelism Today

My **NEW** Favorite Moment of the Conference

Desiring God National Conference

This gets me excited

Article: New Missions Generation

Interview with an Intern

The Gospel as Relevant and Offensive?

Adorning the gospel.

Moving from Seeker-Sensitive to Missional

Faith that Embraces Science

What's the difference?

Why I Love the Cal-Poly Staff

Why I Love Campus Crusade for Christ at Cal-Poly

Valuable Post on Conversions

The Danger of Falling in Love with the "Love" of God

Not Sharing the Gospel with Tears

If Jonathan Edwards Blogged

What is the Love of God?

Complementarian vs. Egalitarian, why is this an issue?

Instead of believing the culture and confronting the Bible...

The Dying of the Light: A Cautionary Tale

Heirarchy in the Trinity--It's a Good Thing

"Guidelines" for How to Approach the Ordination of Women at the Vineyard

Dissin' Doctrine? Athanasius and Paul Say No

True Revival?

"Self-Worth" or "God-Worth"?

Say No to Hierarchy?

A Refreshing View of the Church

To Conference or Not To Conference....That is the Question I Am Asking

Da Da Vinci Code...

4th Annual Golf Tournament

Isn't HE Great!

SMSB: Santa Monica Spring Break '06

Leaders At Risk

Movements Everywhere: Some Essentials

Cru & the Local Church

Acts 19 and 3 Thoughts for Campus Ministry

Ministy Models, lets think ACTS 19 Movements

We Become What We Behold

More On Compressing the Build in Win-Build-Send

Instant Spiritual Leadership

Instant Discipleship

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day Three

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day Two

Shepherd's Conference 2006: Day One

Teen Sees Jesus in a Lava Lamp!

Lava Lamps and Cigars

Buzz about a new Decentralized Multiplication Model

On Why Man Could Not Have Written the Bible

Yearning for True Conversions?

The Gospel and Culture

Update on Indonesian Sunday School Teachers

Balancing the Tension

Practical Application

Saturday Morning Blogging

Hello From Kristie!

The Gospel as Central

Cowgirls with Two Slurs

Lissa with Two S's

My NEW Favorite Moment of the Conference