July 2011

A La Carte (7/21)

Last night I had the privilege of speaking to a big group of teens who traveled up from Tulsa, Oklahoma to do some missions work here in Toronto. What a great encouragement it is to see those teens serving hard and sharing the gospel. (Hi, Emily’s mom!)

There are lots of fantastic Kindle e-book deals available this week. My book The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is available for $2.99, as are The Jesus Storybook Bible, Jerry Bridges’ must-read The Pursuit of Holiness, and Ravi Zacharias’ Has Jesus Failed You?.

The Most Dangerous Countries for Women - The Big Picture has a heartbreaking photo gallery of the most dangerous countries for women.

Grow Up. Settle Down. - John MacArthur is penning a series of blog posts meant to speak to the Young, Restless, Reformed crowd. I’m really looking forward to this! “I have some words of encouragement and counsel for YRRs, and I want to take a few days here at the blog to write to them about their movement, its influences, some hazards that lie ahead, some tendencies to avoid, and some qualities to cultivate.”

Surprised by Suffering - At the Ligonier blog I’ve got a roundup of some great quotes from R.C. Sproul’s book Surprised by Suffering.

Shame - This was an interesting article to read as the author harshly skewers Calvin College for even considering that Adam and Eve could have been real people. Once again we see evidence that the historicity of Adam is one of the major battles facing the church in the twenty-first century.

Cru - Campus Crusade is changing its name to Cru. Yup, Cru. Of course it’s already become Power to Change here in Canada.

If there is to be in our celestial garment but one stitch of our own making we are all of us lost. —C.H. Spurgeon

Divided the Movie

Divided the MovieYour church is heavily influenced by evolutionary thinking. It is founded on principles created by pagans and for pagans. You have succumbed to hellish thinking and imposed it upon your church. At least this is the case if your church has a nursery or a Sunday school or any other kind of program that involves dividing people by age. That is the rather audacious claim of Divided, a documentary that is being heavily promoted by the National Center for Family Integrated Churches (NCFIC). Divided is a film about youth ministry. Kind of. At its heart it is a movie that promotes Family Integrated Church (FIC).

Divided follows a young filmmaker named Philip Leclerc as he seeks to find answers to the tricky question of why young people are abandoning the Christian faith. This journey quickly leads him to the leaders of the FIC where he learns that age segregation is at the very heart of our problems while family integration is the key to rebuilding the church and recapturing the next generation. 

The film begins with a long list of scary statistics pointing to the sad reality that young people are increasingly abandoning their churches (a genuine concern that I wrote about recently). This introduces the tension the movie depends upon. How do we guard our children against becoming just another set of sad statistics? Leclerc begins his journey at a Christian music festival where we see young people head-banging to Christian rock and just plain having fun. He speaks to youth pastors who believe the key to reaching youth is to be cool and hip. He speaks to young people who believe in evolution or who don’t even know what they believe. He says about this festival that people were being taught that “the fun music of the world can bring you closer to God.” And in this way he paints an ugly picture of an entire generation.

Having done this, he finds the best and brightest of the FIC movement and allows them to interpret. This sets an intellectual like Voddie Baucham against a girl with a face full of piercings who partied so hard at the concert that her mohawk collapsed. It’s hardly a fair right. What Leclerc does is what so many documentarians do: he chooses his representatives very, very carefully. He chooses the intellectuals of the FIC to represent his view and chooses the young and foolish to represent the other side. It’s hardly subtle and not at all fair. He builds his case on a cliche.

Once he has set the two sides in opposition, he allows proponents of FIC to pile on. One by one Scott Brown and Voddie Baucham and Doug Phillips and Paul Washer and many others talk about how youth ministry has ruined the church—and not just youth ministry, but any kind of ministry that divides people by age. These men make the claim that the first 1800 years of the church knew no age segregation whatsoever; it is only in the past 200 years or so that anyone considered dividing children by age. They claim that any kind of age segregation stems directly from evolution and has roots in paganism. Any kind of age segregation therefore sows pagan seeds of division.

These leaders claim that the Bible clearly teaches that we must not age segregate. Ever. The classroom is a pagan creation and so too is the Sunday school. Leclerc goes so far as to claim that the mass youth exodus may just be God’s hand of punishment upon the church for our active disobedience in ignoring what Scripture teaches.

The solution is to raise up a new generation of fathers who will take responsibility for their children and stop outsourcing the raising of their children to youth pastors. Fathers who truly love the Lord and who truly love their children will know better than to allow them to participate in youth ministry or Sunday school. These are the central claims of the film.

So what do we do with Divided?

Keep Reading →

A La Carte (7/20)

Father & Son - “Chris Bray and his father, Kenneth, attended the launch of STS-135, the final space shuttle mission, on July 8. Thirty years earlier, they saw the launch of STS-1, the very first one. Possessing nearly identical photos of himself and his father at the two launches, Bray uploaded a composite image of them to Flickr and posted a link to the image on Reddit. It quickly shot up the ranks.”

Dramatic Swings - WORLD writes about Christian ballplayer Josh Hamilton who was recently involved in a terrible tragedy.

Modern Poverty - This is definitely worth reading: “When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can't adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families. When the Census Bureau defines "poverty," though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans -- one in seven -- as ‘poor.’”

Book Hoarding - Here is a little parable courtesy of Jim Elliff. It begins like this: "Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance of books does his life consist of his library."

Lego LOTR - This is spectacular.

Understanding Homosexuality - In this series R.C. Sproul looks to Scripture to help us understand some of the confusion surrounding the issue of homosexuality and provides us with simple biblical responses to them. It’s a free download from Ligonier.

Dilbert - Dilbert still makes me laugh occasionally.

Dilbert.com

Sin is but hell in embryo; hell is but sin in fulfilment. —Thomas V. Moore

CY

SOUL Christianity ExploredYou have probably heard of Christianity Explored, an evangelistic course that uses DVDs and workbooks to lead people through the gospel of Mark and ultimately to call them to become followers of Jesus. What you may not know is that there is also an excellent version of the course that targets a younger demographic. It is called CY.

CY is a life-changing journey through the Gospel of Mark. In seven interactive sessions, young people will explored what Christians believe, discover the Bible’s answers to the big questions of life and find out what Christianity is all about. CY is for older teenagers and young adults and works perfectly with the SOUL DVD. For 11-14’s, there is a special edition, CY Nano.

I led a group of teenagers through the course last year, using both the workbooks and the accompanying DVD, and was very impressed with it. It does a very good job of explaining the gospel in a way that is specially geared toward a young audience. It manages to avoid being hip and trendy even while still managing to appeal to that younger demographic. It focuses on the message, never letting the message get lost in the activities or presentation. Along the way it very powerfully pleads with participants to turn to Christ, whether they are church kids or people with very little church background.

You may be interested in taking a look at the trailer: 

This is a time of year that many church leaders are pondering activities for the fall. Might I suggest that you consider CY? I am confident that you will find it a great resource and one that will be a blessing to all of those who participate.

You can learn more about it right here.

Should Christians Embrace Evolution?

Should Christians Embrace EvolutionShould Christians embrace evolution? It is an increasingly urgent question and one that seems increasingly difficult to answer. Like you, I have grown accustomed to hearing Christians declare that, in the end, it doesn’t really matter a whole lot what you believe about creation, whether you embrace a literal six-day creation or a version that allows for some kind of evolution. If only it was that simple. The fact is that there are many other doctrines that lean heavily upon the doctrine of creation. As this one topples and falls, many other crumble along side it.

Just a couple of weeks ago WORLD magazine declared Should Christians Embrace Evolution? their book of the year for 2011. I received the book just days after and eagerly opened it up to see what the fuss was all about. What I found is a book that offers a series of biblical and scientific responses to the question of evolution. Edited by Norman Nevin, the chapters are written by a list of distinguished scientists and theologians. 

What the book demonstrates above all, and what it demonstrates especially in the first half, is that there is far more to the issue of creation than merely whether the world was created in six days or six billion years. This doctrine of creation provides a foundation for many others. As we let go of a literal six-day creation, we find many other critical doctrines are in danger of falling with it. For example:

  • Was Adam truly a historical person who truly fathered the entire human race?
  • Did death exist before man’s fall into sin? What kind of death came with the Fall?
  • Did God create a world in which death was, in fact, a necessary (and good!) part of the created order?
  • Can one join Darwinianism and the Bible without inadvertently (but necessarily) slipping into Gnostic errors which downplay the physical in favor of the spiritual?

This is merely a sampling. The fact is that creation does not stand alone within the Bible; there is much that hinges upon it.

Keep Reading →

A La Carte (7/19)

How to Evaluate Your Sermons - Here’s one for the preachers: “We must regularly evaluate our preaching to know if we are growing as preachers. Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) said to his ministerial students, ‘I give you the motto, 'Go forward.' Go forward in personal attainments, forward in gifts and in grace, forward in fitness for the work, and forward in conformity to the image of Jesus.’

Shepherding a 106-Year Old - I enjoyed this article from Brian Croft. He reflects on lessons he has learned from pastoring a 106-year old woman.

Content and Generous - Z has some good things to say about money: “I'm afraid the framing of this discussion leads us to ask the wrong questions. Like the junior high boy who wonders how ‘far is too far’ with his girlfriend, we are quickly caught up in questions about how rich is too rich, how poor is too poor, and the like. Where is the line? Do I feel guilty for having too much? Do the kids have enough? What does ‘enough’ even mean?”

4 Steps to Kill Sin - Courtesy of Sinclair Ferguson.

Reparative Therapy - Al Mohler discusses a hot political issue.

Childrens’ Book Sale - Reformation Heritage Book has several kids’ books on sale (and one about raising them). Gospel-Powered Parenting for $5 is a great bargain!

Amazon’s Tablet - The e-book and e-reader market continues to evolve in interesting directions. Amazon looks set to announce 2 new versions of the Kindle and a tablet which will compete with the iPad.

We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds. —Thomas Watson

Vacation Reading

Last week I enjoyed a vacation with my family. As with most of my vacations, I spent quite a lot of time reading. Along the way I managed to finish several books and thought I’d offer up brief reviews of each of them.

In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson - Every summer I try to read a good history book (or 2 or 3). The first book I read on vacation was In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. The book offers an amazing portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler's reign. Larson accomplishes this through the stories of William Dodd, the American ambassador to Berlin, and his socialite daughter, Martha. While Dodd begins to discover what Hitler is up to (the book is set in 1933), Martha is socializing, dating and sleeping with a succession of Nazis, Communists and other notables. Between them, father and daughter offering a fascinating glimpse of the nation as Hitler began to turn his country against the Jews and began to gear up for war.

Decision Points

Decision Points by George W. Bush. I had been wanting to read President Bush’s memoir for some time now, and being on vacation gave me the opportunity. The book is structured around 14 critical decisions Bush has had to make, most of which came during his presidency. He is feisty at times, remorseful at others. He certainly shows that he is not the unthinking, fundamentalist moron the press so joyously and consistently portrayed him as. I was particularly interested in the many portions of the book in which he speaks of his faith—portions which unfortunately often left me quite confused and with no better sense of what he truly believes. Overall, though, the book is well-written and quite enjoyable, even if it feels a chapter or two too long.

Inside Scientology

Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman. Scientology is an interesting religion—one that appears to have been fabricated more as a money-maker than a life-changer. Its doctrine defies any kind of sense or logic and its followers ultimately find themselves enslaved to the system. Society has justifiably turned on the church, even banning it in some countries. My concern with this is that many of the arguments used in opposition of Scientology could quite easily be turned against Christianity (“They indoctrinate children!”). Thus my interest in reading this book was largely to familiarize myself with the tenets of the religion and to seek to understand how people are battling against it. Reitman does a good job of exposing it as a secular kind of cult.

Keep Reading →

Love of the Greatest Kind

Jason DunhamJason Dunham of Scio, New York, joined the U.S. Marines in the year 2000. Just 18 years old when he enlisted, he quickly showed leadership ability and was chosen as a squad leader in Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment. Dunham’s unit took part in the invasion of Iraq and it was here that he would perform an act of outstanding gallantry.

On April 14, 2004, Corporal Dunham was in the town of Karabilah, leading a patrol to scout potential locations for a new base. Over the radio they heard that a nearby group of Marines had been ambushed by insurgents; at least 2 had received severe injuries. 

Cpl. Dunham’s patrol jumped aboard some Humvees and raced toward the convoy. Near the double-arched gateway of the town of Husaybah, they heard the distinctive whizzing sound of a rocket-propelled grenade overhead. They left their vehicles and split into two teams to hunt for the shooters, according to interviews with two men who were there and written reports from two others. Around 12:15 p.m., Cpl. Dunham’s team came to an intersection and saw a line of seven Iraqi vehicles along a dirt alleyway, according to Staff Sgt. Ferguson and others there. At Staff Sgt. Ferguson’s instruction, they started checking the vehicles for weapons.

Cpl. Dunham approached a run-down white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver, an Iraqi in a black track suit and loafers, immediately lunged out and grabbed the corporal by the throat, according to men at the scene. Cpl. Dunham kneed the man in the chest, and the two tumbled to the ground. 1

Two other Marines rushed to help, trying to subdue the driver. From a few yards away another Marine heard Dunham yell, “No, no, no—watch his hand!” The Iraqi man dropped a grenade, armed and ready to explode. Dunham immediately threw himself upon that grenade, covering it with his helmet and his body, to contain the explosion and protect his squadmates.

The resulting explosion left Corporal Dunham unconscious, face down in his own blood. He would never regain consciousness, dying several days later as a result of the horrific injuries he had sustained.

Keep Reading →

A La Carte (7/18)

My apologies to those who were looking for the final post in Reading Classics Together. I was on vacation last week and just plain forgot to write up the Reading Classics article. I’ll catch up this Thursday! Meanwhile, here are some links that may be of interest…

Setting Their Hope in God - Andrew Case’s book, which helps parents (or others) pray for children, is on sale at Amazon (in the Kindle edition) for just $0.99. Meanwhile, Monergism Books has Van Til’s Defending the Faith (ebook) for free. You might also be interested in this free CD of lectures on Christ and Salvation.

9 Lessons Concerning Sickeness - Here are 9 lessons from God concerning sickness (care of J.C. Ryle).

Google and Memory - Another interesting article on what the Internet is doing to memory.

Something’s Missing - Something is missing from your giving, according to this writer. And I think he raises a point that is worth considering—how do you decide what (and how) to give?

Cook with Coke - You know you want to try it…

The Internet of Things - This is quite an interesting infographic that deals with all the things that are connected to the Internet. Things you might not expect (like cows).

The only thing that a man can contribute to his own redemption is the sin from which he needs to be redeemed. —William Temple

Talk to Yourself!

Here is a wise word from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from his work Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure. It will help to know that the biblical context for what he is writing here is Psalm 42.

The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: 'Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you'. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience.

 
The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: 'Why art thou cast down'-what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God'-instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: 'I shall yet priase Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God'.