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The Measure of Success for a Church

When I measure our success as a church I do so more by the leaders we raise up and the people we send out more than I do the size of the audiences we create. As I've heard it recently, it's sending capacity, not seating capacity, that is the measure of a church.

(Of course, the ultimate measure of success for a church is faithfulness to the will of God. All other things, no matter how impressive and important, are secondary to being able to say we obeyed God in all that we knew and sought Him diligently. That said... when I want to "count" success, I will do so more by the leaders we raise up than the warm bodies we sit down.)

Summit, my desire is not for you just to come and hear me preach each week. My desire is for you to discover the gifts and ministry that God has given to each of you. Have you discovered your gift yet? Are you involved in a fulfilling ministry? Are you living a life of purpose and sacrifice?

If not, the best way to begin that process is to be a part of a Summit Life Group. That is the first stage of our leadership pipeline.

My desire for many of you is for you to leave our church... of course, not to go and sit in audience somewhere else, but to go and plant your life in one of our church plants, whether here or overseas. It's a radical idea, yes... but it's who we are. Our God is a sending God. If we follow Him, we will be a sending people

The Week of Hope

Starting Sunday, we are in a full scale operation to serve our city, called the Week of Hope. God willing, we will put 2000 volunteers onto the streets to serve our city in Jesus' name. It is huge. If you haven't heard about it yet, you are deaf.

I want to remind you that the purpose we do this for the purpose of the Gospel. Every weed we pluck, every wall we paint, every homeless person we comfort--it's all for the purpose of making Jesus famous. We want to show, in a tangible way, what Jesus' love is like. Jesus SERVED us by pouring out His life for us when He died on a cross as a substitute for our sins. Now we will pour out our lives for others.

Every person is made in the image of God. They all have value. They all matter. And no one is less deserving of God's love than we ourselves were when Jesus died for us. As we have been loved, we will love; as we have been served, we will serve. It is our response to the Gospel. We don't just serve to convert; we serve because we're converted.

One thing we have STRONGLY encouraged you to do that week is INVITE SOMEONE you work or live with to serve WITH you, especially if they are not a Christian. Let them serve with you, and let that service provide a chance for you to explain why you live the way we do.

Peter says to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within is. We demonstrate our hope when we have great joy in the midst of persecution and when we sacrifice generously for others. Live radically, so that your life begs a question... and then be ready to answer it.

In Christ am I still "Scots-Irish"?

This is from a discussion in the comments of my blog... and it intrigues me so I thought I'd move it to the 'main stage.' This discussion is one I'm really interested in, and feel like I have little understanding on...

Perhaps I have interpreted D. A. Carson's talk, and even the Bible, wrongly here. I am trying to learn.

Below is a response to my blog from two days ago from someone who described her/himself as "an ethnic Christian," and below that is my response to them.

What can you add? I really do want to understand this better, because it is so crucially important in our culture...

Dear J.D., 

have some serious problems with this interpretation of Carson’s talk and, ultimately, this depiction of ethnicity. I would like to ask some questions.

1. How does an individual who is a new creature in Christ live out his/her "supra-race" identity?

2. Is race/ethnicity only the color of one's skin? If it is not then how can we talk about race/ethnicity being tied to our flesh?

3. Is our flesh tied to everything that is created? If so, and our flesh is to be resisted, how do we make sense out of heaven being a place where every "tribe, nation, and tongue" is represented?

4. What role does ethnicity play in a Christian's life outside of its purpose for missions (i.e. becoming all things to all men)?

5. Are we to have a Christian identity which "supercedes ALL characteristics of [our] human flesh" or one that would make me "not [racial/ethnic] any longer" making me "only Christian?" These are clearly two different conceptions.

Finally, after listening to Carson’s talk myself I realize that he intends something very different by the “third position” or tertium quid than has been asserted here. Far from promoting some sort of colorblindness or ethnically neutral ontology for Christians, Carson actually points out that Paul understood himself to be ethnically Jewish. Carson references Romans 9:10 and that Paul sometimes makes distinctions between Jewish Christians and other Christians. Carson even says, “Paul knows full well that ethnically and racially at the end of the day he is still a Jew…there are many contexts in which he is grateful for his heritage and identifies with it.” However, in this context he speaks of his ethnic identity differently. So when Paul says that he becomes a Jew it does seem that he assumes he is not one. But as Carson points out, Paul is actually trying to show that in a certain sense he is not one, namely, that he is not under the law (which he highlights in the subsequent verse). The point of the tertium quid is that we are not slaves to our “rights,” as Carson puts it, ethnicity being one of them. This is in order that we might not think more highly of ourselves than we ought, or so cling to our “rights” (or ethnicity) to the point that we hinder the spreading of the gospel, and specifically for Paul this means not offending an immature brother in Christ who has a weak conscience. In other words, we as Christians should, as a result of our “third position,” be able to put off in a sense our rights in order to reach people with the gospel. If we were slaves to our ethnicity we would not desire to be flexible, as Carson puts it, in order to win someone outside of or inside of our ethnic group. Therefore, Carson is not trying to promote some sort of colorblindness, ethnically neutral identity, or dualistic framework.

Posted by: An Ethnic Christian | June 27, 2009 at 03:16 PM

Dear Ethnic Christian,

Yes, I don't think Carson was saying that Paul was somehow unaware or embarrassed that he was ethnically Jewish. Yet, as Carson asserts, here and in Galatians 3:28 he clearly says that Jewness and Gentileness is not part of his new identity in Christ. It's hard to make a stronger statement than, "In Christ, there is no Jew or Greek." Surely Paul would say that means in Christ there is no black or white. And, to "become a Jew" means that, in at least one sense, he didn't consider himself one. (As you point out, in a natural sense, however, he still saw himself that way.)

Thus, in Christ, am I really a white man? I'd say no, I'm part of the newly redeemed race, which is only one race. In Christ, is there truly "no" Asian, black, white or Hispanic?

Further, Paul says, "From now on we know no one according to the flesh." When you identify yourself as "an ethnic Christian," aren't you insisting we know you, even in your Christianity, still according to the flesh? I am not trying here to be antagonistic... so I hope it doesn't come across that way. But why is it part of our identity? When you call yourself 'an ethnic Christian,' aren't you implying you are something I am not? Am I not ethnic too, i.e. ethnically white? In Christ, there is, in at least one very important way, no more ethnicity. Our identity, in essence, is in Christ alone.

This does not mean we can't notice each other's cultures, or even embrace the cultural distinctives about ourselves. After all, Gal 3:28 does not mean either that we are all genderless and that dudes can marry other dudes. I am still a male, and, in the same way, still an American white guy.

Yet, Paul pretty boldly states that positionally, in Christ, I have a most fundamental identity beyond either of those things. I am part of a new redeemed race in Christ in which ethnicity and social status no longer matter.

The balance to this, that I am trying to work out, is how the Bible intends to celebrate the cultures to the point that we take them ALL (Rev 7:9, ch 22, etc) into heaven with thus. There is a forever preserved American Christianity, a Nigerian one, an Indonesian one, an Arab one, etc... but more fundamentally we are the new supra race in Christ.

My fear is that for most of us ethnicity has become some kind of defining idol we have added to the new humanity in Christ.

Reforming Bean, your comment is appreciated as well. Yes, I don't mean to imply gnosticism as if Christ only died for our "colorless soul," and I see how my statement could imply that... you are right, Christ, in every way, raises our physical body... yet, at the same time, Paul does say that in Christ there is no more Jew or Greek, and that now we know no one according to the flesh. He has made us all one by being raised as the Lord of all humanity. What is a better way of expressing that?

The Confusing Language of Calling

While J.D. is away traveling, I (Ike Miller) will be posting a smattering of his greatest hits, thoughts on Church Philosophy and possibly some guest blogs.  J.D. also will be posting intermittently with thoughts and updates from his trip so be sure to check in for those. 

In the post below J.D. offers some thoughts to challenge our "language of calling" and suggests that knowing our vocation may be more about obedient discipleship then it is about waiting for a particular experience God's of revelation.  

Feel free to leave your own comments or you may read previous comments on this post here. 

It is common Christian parlance to say “I feel called to do so and so…” What we’re usually trying to communicate is we feel that God has given us a specific missional assignment in God’s Kingdom. I wonder, however, if that language is not misleading and harmful. Where do we really find biblical support for all these special “callings”?

Christians never need to be “called” to live missionally, it is inherent in being a disciple. To become a disciple of Jesus means you begin to evaluate your talents in terms of how they can best be used in the spread of God’s Kingdom. Say you are a businessman, and you know your talents are best suited for work in the marketplace where you can do excellent work to the glory of God and benefit of humanity and use relationships there to testify to Christ. You don’t have to wait on a call to begin to do so. When you become a disciple, you begin to immediately live missionally, no longer for yourself, but for Jesus. You go to work each day doing your work for the glory of God, the benefit of humanity, and in pursuit of proclaiming Jesus.

If that is the case, then if you realize that your talents can be best be used in God’s Kingdom by using them overseas to benefit a poorer nation and you can use your skill there to testify to Christ, why must we wait on a call to do so? I say this because we have so many people sitting around waiting on some warm-fuzzy, goose-bump-inducing vision from God before they will even consider serving overseas. If your talents can best serve God’s Kingdom by using them overseas, why would you wait on a call to do so? You have alrady been given that call!  To do what is best with your talents for the Kingdom of God is not a special calling God gives to some disciples, it is the duty of all disciples. Maybe we’ve invented the whole language of calling to mask the fact that most Christians have never started to live missionally, as disciples. Personally, I think the parlance of calling is evangelical heresy.

So, let me say it clearly: I DON’T THINK YOU NEED TO BE ‘CALLED’ TO GO OVERSEAS. No more than I think you need to be “called” to live missionally wherever you are. I don’t think you have to wait until God spells out “Africa” in your Cheerios one morning. I think you, as a disciple, have to ask, “How can my talents best be used in God’s mission all over the world?” If the answer is that you can be part of an overseas community-building, Jesus-preaching project, don’t wait for a “calling”. Pack your bags.

Instead of “calling,” maybe what we should be looking for from God is GUIDANCE. Maybe our prayer should go like this: “God, you did not give your talents to me for me, simply to live where I want to live and make a ton of money to live luxuriously. My talents are yours—dedicated to doing all I can to extend the message of your Kingdom all over the world. Guide me in seeing where I can be most beneficial on earth.” If you’re not willing to pray that prayer and obey what God tells you out of it, then you’re not really a disciple of Jesus.

I owe this insight due to a vigorous discussion I was in with a group of the greatest guys on earth I get together with every other Friday—future church planters and pastors and Christian entrepreneurs.

Praying the Gospel

On numerous occasions I have told you all at the Summit I try to pray the Gospel every day. Recently, we studied through the Lord’s prayer, which basically is a prayer that emanates out of the Gospel. After studying that prayer, I realized I was leaving one crucial part out of my Gospel prayer. It is statement #3 below.

 

Praying this helps me center myself on the Gospel, fight against my propensity to works-righteousness, idolatry, self-centeredness and unbelief.

 

“Father, there is nothing I can do that would make you love me more.”





“Father, you are all I need for everlasting joy.”



“Father, as you have been to me, so I will be to others.”



“Father, I will ask according to your generosity and power revealed in the Gospel.”

A Defense of Mediocrity

While J.D. is away traveling, I (Ike Miller) will be posting a smattering of his greatest hits, thoughts on Church Philosophy and possibly some guest blogs.  J.D. also will be posting intermittently with thoughts and updates from his trip so be sure to check in for those. 

Below I am posting a guest blog by Summit's very own Sharon Hodde.  Sharon is a college minister in North Carolina who is especially passionate about women's ministry and articulating its importance for the future of the church.  For more from Sharon, see here own blog at "sheworships.com".

At least once a week, I consider dropping out of ministry.

I’ve heard Mark Driscoll refer to this kind of weekly day-dreaming as “bread truck Mondays”–every Monday he wakes up and thinks about quitting his job and driving a bread truck. Why? Because driving a bread truck gives you just enough distraction to be stimulating, without requiring you to really think at all.

I can sympathize.

For me, there is a myriad of reasons why I consider quitting ministry on a weekly basis. Some days I’m burned out, some days I feel overwhelmed, and some days I feel unappreciated. And then there are the days when someone blesses me out and calls me everything short of the anti-Christ–those are the days when my friends and family have had to actively stop me from running away and never coming back.

But the MAIN reason that I often consider quitting the ministry, the one reason that I would ever seriously give heed to, is this: my motives for doing ministry are wrong.

There is a misconception that Christians get into ministry to resist the rat race of the secular business world. It’s well known that ministry doesn’t pay well, plus ministry is all about helping people, so it would seem to attract those individuals who are denying the temptations of the American dream. To go into ministry, we must be intentionally forsaking the idols that so many Christians chase after in the secular realm.

This is false.

For many, ministry is merely a Christian version of the worldly ladder of success. While that is not the primary reason that most ministers pursue their vocation, there comes a point at which the lines become blurry. You DO want to reach the lost and you DO want to love the world for the glory of God, but you also want to do it BETTER than everyone else. You want to be great. You want to be remembered as having done something truly remarkable in your generation.

Some ministers veil this desire with language about “doing something great for the Kingdom of God.” They don’t want to look back on their lives and regret their mediocre life’s work. They want to know that they left a mark on the world.

And while I don’t doubt that many of these ministers’ motives are pure, I must admit that mine often are not. I have that exact same passion–I want to do something truly great for God–but I am frequently measuring “greatness” according to the world’s standards, not God’s.

In doing so, I make the strenuous climb up the Christian ladder of success–I put pressure on myself to have a booming ministry, to be a great speaker and a writer, and to compare myself with those who do it better. And when I fail at these things, I feel like an inadequate minister. It doesn’t matter that I spent the whole week meeting one-on-one with students and teaching them to love Jesus more. That sort of ministry isn’t impressive. That sort of minister doesn’t get articles and books written about them.

If all you’re doing is meeting with students and your ministry is small, then you would seem like a pretty mediocre minister. You have the kind of ministry that many pastors would “despair at the thought” of spending their lives leading.

So it is on these days when I feel the pressure to out-perform my teammates, to be the best, the most successful, and the most original minister, writer, speaker and thinker–those are the days when I consider quitting. I think about leaving ministry behind and working at Subway, not because ministry is too hard, but because my call has gotten so thoroughly mangled. I think about quitting the ministry to intentionally take a job in which there is no ladder of success, and purge myself of the desire to serve God for any other reason than my sheer love for Him.

And maybe one day I will. For now, I am learning to be ok with mediocrity–not laziness, not complacency, or apathy–but mediocrity according to the world’s standards. Maybe I won’t have a ministry that the world judges to be a tremendous success. Maybe I won’t be able to tally up thousands of people who prayed the sinner’s prayer because of me. Maybe no one will remember me when I’m gone.

But those standards are not to be found in God’s economy. Sure, God wants all people to experience salvation–you see mass conversions all the time in Acts. But not everyone is a Paul, and God only asks that we do the best we can with the gifts we have. We are to love others radically, we are to speak boldly about Jesus, and we are to live a life that testifies daily to the Gospel. Nothing less, but also nothing more.

So even if you are mediocre according to this world, such a label does not matter as long as you are a good and faithful servant to God. This is hard for me to remember as I stand in the shadow of so many successful pastors and writers, but it is in those moments that I am reminded that worldly success, even when it’s achieved in a Christian context, will all be burned away. The big church buildings, the millions of books–they will all pass away come eternity. Those things can certainly be effective tools for God’s Kingdom, but they do not distinguish the sheep from the goats.

Ethnicity and The Soul

Over the next couple of weeks J.D. Will be traveling so I, Ike Miller, will be posting a smattering of his greatest hits, thoughts on Church Philosophy and possibly some guest blogs.  J.D. also will be posting intermittently with thoughts and updates from his trip so be sure to check in for those. 

Here is a thought on faith and race relations that J.D. took note of from D.A. Carson:

D.A. Carson gave one the best explanations of ethnicity I’ve ever heard in his talk on 1 Corinthians 9 at the Gospel Coalition, 2009. Paul says that to the Jew he had to become a Jew, and likewise to the Gentile, he had to become a Gentile. What is striking about this is that with Jewness and Gentileness you had to be one OR the other... i.e., not being a Jew automatically made you a Gentile. Yet Paul saw himself, in Christ, as something altogether different, a "tertium quid." All Christians are in Christ, which is supra-race (Galatians 3:28). Paul now knows no one according to the flesh, which includes being black or white. So, to the Jews, he must become a Jew, even though ethnically, he already is a Jew. 

In the same way, to the white people, I must become a white person, even though my skin is already white—in Christ, I am not white any longer. I am only Christian. In other words, blackness and whiteness are not part of our soul. They are merely passing characteristics of our bodies. In the same way, black people in Christ must so embrace their new identity in Christ, that they must feel they must “become” black to other black people. Black people and white people are really part of a new identity altogether, a new race, which supercedes ALL characteristics of their human flesh.

Sin makes us all the same color

One of our church planting center partners, a black guy named Raphael, just said one of the coolest things I've heard in a while... speaking of the Advance conference, he said: "At first I felt strange in that there weren't that many black guys in the room, but when Mark Driscoll started talking about idolatry in the pastor's life, we all turned the same color. First pink with embarrassment, and then red with blood of Jesus."

Sin and salvation tend to make us realize we're all one race, saved by the same Savior. No black, white, Jew, Greek, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, male or female. Just sinners and Jesus.

Should Evangelical Churches Be Involved in Community Ministry and if so, WHY?

Over the next couple of weeks J.D. Will be traveling so I, Ike Miller, will be posting a smattering of his greatest hits, thoughts on Church Philosophy and possibly some guest blogs.  J.D. also will be posting intermittently with thoughts and updates from his trip so be sure to check in for those.  

With "Week of Hope" right around the corner, the following article is an excellent explanation of the importance of community ministry and a reminder to our church that our service is to be a picture of the Gospel and a sign of the Kingdom of God:

Our church is committed to physically blessing whatever area we are trying to plant churches in. By that I mean not only do we want to see churches planted, we want to see the improvement of local education, health, and politics, and standards of living, and see the decrease of crime and poverty. We engage in projects to those ends. We don't do this as a bait and switch, as if it's just a gimmick to get people to trust Jesus. Part of the Gospel is loving our neighbor whether or not they ever trust Jesus. As a friend of mine says, "We don't serve to convert, we serve because we are converted."

Thankfully, a lot of evangelical churches today are re-embracing the need to love their world soul AND body. However, they don't always seem to agree on the reason behind why we do it. Some have never put much thought to it. There seems to be a theological haze around evangelical community ministry.

Let me sketch out for you a few of the different reasons I've encountered for why churches serve (or don't serve) the physical needs of their community. (I will leave the names associated with these reasons out in case I am misrepresenting them, but I have found popular evangelical spokesmen who advocated each of these positions)...

1. Some say we do community ministry because we are extending the Kingdom of God on earth: Some people believe that Jesus left us to build His kingdom on earth. We are not simply to be evangelizing the earth, as if we're simply trying to load up the Ark before God destroys the world again. These people embrace a worldview of creation/fall/redemption/restoration. The whole point of God's work is not simply to rescue people out of the earth, but to actually restore the earth to its glorified state. They point out that in the final chapter of Revelation what you have is not a group of Christians being evacuated off of earth into heaven, but a city coming DOWN from heaven to earth. Jesus' miracles, they note, were not (as commonly supposed) a suspension of the natural order, but a return to the natural order. They showed the earth the way it was supposed to be, the way it will be in the Kingdom. Jesus' resurrection, in like manner, was just the "firstfruits" of the resurrection of the whole world. We are to take the power of this resurrection to all spheres of the world. Martin Luther exemplified this when he answered the question, "What would you do if you knew Jesus were coming back tomorrow?" with, "Plant a tree. Imagine what that tree will look like in Jesus' glorified reign." For these people, community restoration is not simply a means for evangelism; rather, evangelism is the means to community restoration, because "community restoration" is the ultimate point of the church's work on earth! I've heard community restoration and evangelism described as two wings of the same plane, with community restoration being the "more important" wing!

When confronted with the question, "But doesn't the Bible say in 2 Peter 3 that the earth will be burned up?," these people point out that what Peter actually says (when you consider the Greek translation) is that the world be "purified" through fire and that the heavens and earth will "pass away." When the earth is purified by fire, the dross of corruption and sin will be burned away but the gold of God's Kingdom will remain. Just as one day my physical body will "pass away" and my spirit will still remain, so the dead outer body of the earth will dissolve and only the Kingdom (which we have been building on earth) will remain. Jesus will simply finish what we have started.

2. Some say we do community ministry simply because we love our neighbor. Some other Christians disagree with the above, but are still involved in community ministry. They say that we are not called to build the kingdom physically on earth, other than to call people to surrender to the Lordship of King Jesus. Jesus will build the Kingdom Himself, our role in the Kingdom is to call people to King Jesus. Ours is not primarily the ministry of restoration, but the ministry of reconciliation. They point out that the city that we see in the final chapter of Revelation DESCENDS from heaven, not rises up from the earth as Christians build it. In other words, we don't build the Kingdom so Jesus can return to it. He builds it and brings it down to us.

These people are still involved in serving their neighbor, however, as they note that we cannot love our neighbors and see them cold and underfed and not meet their physical needs. Love is the most significant change the Gospel makes in our hearts, and to love people means that we can't sit by when they are in hunger. "We don't serve to convert, we serve because we are converted."

It's just that they would not see the restoration of society as the endgame of OUR (the church's) work on earth, they would see the redemption of people as the church's work. Evangelism is our PRIMARY task, not community restoration.

3. Some say social ministry is not the domain of the church; the church should only be concerned with preaching the Gospel. Other Christians go a step farther and say that preaching is the one, primary work of the church and that other good pursuits (like social justice) should not take the church away from her one task, the preaching of the Gospel. These people believe that preaching the Gospel IS the greatest act of community service they can do.

They would see themselves kind of like an EMT in an emergency. If there were an earthquake that left a lot of people dying, the most loving thing the EMT could do is not be distracted by cleaning up all the mess and do the one thing that only he can do, and that is perform emergency procedures that save lives.

They point out that in Acts you don't see the Apostles running soup kitchens, you see them preaching. When they are presented with a social need like the hunger of the widows (Acts 6), they challenge other Christians to take up this task so that they will not be distracted from preaching. They point out that when Jesus was asked to get involved in social justice issues, he declined and preached instead: when he was asked to end world hunger in John 6 he declined and preached instead to the people about Himself as the bread of life; when he was asked to solve the property dispute of one person who had been cheated out of their property, He said that this was not His business and preached to the crowd instead about the sin of greed.

These people believe that individual Christians (or groups of Christians, as in charitable foundations, philanthropy groups, parachurch ministries, etc) can and should engage in community ministry issues, just not the local church body herself. The focus of the organized church should be preaching. However, if the church perceives that she can preach the Gospel better by engaging in community ministry, she should do that. But preaching is the endgame.

4. Some say community ministry is done as a "sign" of the Gospel, and a necessary part of preaching the Gospel. OK, I'll admit, this is my position (which is why I left it till last.) We believe that community ministry is more than just love of our neighbor, it is a sign of the Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated. In the same way that Jesus' miraculous signs gave physical pictures of what His kingdom was like (a Kingdom without blindness or sickness), community ministry also shows what the kingdom is really like: a kingdom of justice, progress, equity, health, and sacrificial love. Unlike the "build the Kingdom" people, however, we don't believe that we are actually building the Kingdom on earth. Jesus alone can do that. As pointed out above, the glorified, restored city comes down from above and the heavenly Garden is planted by God Himself.

What we are doing is giving signs, the way that Jesus did. Signs, whether done by Jesus or by us, are only temporary. The blind eyes that Jesus healed went blind again--they weren't Kingdom eyes, because Kingdom eyes will never decay. The dead people Jesus raised died again. He was only giving a temporary picture of what the Kingdom was like. Some theologians assert that had Israel accepted Jesus as the Messiah He would have inaugurated the Kingdom, in which case the healings He gave would have become permanent and the actual institution of the Kingdom. Regardless, Jesus is now in heaven and we await His return. He alone can bring resurrection to the earth. Just like his signs and miracles, our "restoration" is only temporary and only a sign of the future restoration. The bodies we heal will deteriorate again; the neighborhoods we rebuild will turn back into ghettos once again. Every single "renewal" that God did in the Bible, Old or New Testament, eventually deteriorated back into chaos, with the exception of the resurrection of Christ Himself and our souls resurrected in Him. We are not building the Kingdom for Jesus; we are giving signs of that Kingdom, just like He did.

To those that think we are actually building the Kingdom now, I would urge the consideration of a little historical context: this was the failed experiment of zealous Christians in the 17th and 20th centuries. In fact, much of the "America is God's chosen nation" heresy in the church today came out of the mentality that some Christians had at the birth of our nation. They thought they were building the perfect Kingdom government which Jesus would come back to. Those that are trying to build Kingdom businesses and Kingdom governments should be wary of trying to actually build the Kingdom without the King.

What we, the church, are here to do, primarily, is to preach the Gospel of His Kingdom and compel others to surrender to the King Jesus. Ours is the ministry of reconciliation to the King, not restoration of the Kingdom. HOWEVER, just as Jesus, as part of His preaching, gave signs of the Kingdom, so we are to perform signs in our communities. We are to heal the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the poor, sometimes by natural means and sometimes supernatural. We are to constantly testify that this is what the Kingdom is like and compel people to come to Jesus the Kingom. Our kindness is neither random nor senseless. It signifies the Kingdom. We are to (in the words of N.T. Wright who, so far as I know, does not agree with my position) "sketch out with pencil what Jesus will one day paint over in indelible ink."

We want our cities to be like Samaria in Acts 8, who "rejoiced" because of the preaching and healing ministry of Philip. We want our communities to be like Tabitha's community in Acts 9 who wept at her death because of all the kind deeds she had done in their midst. We believe that the beauty of Jesus' kingdom is so compelling that our community will look at us and say, "Wow. We don't believe what they believe, but thank God they're here!" 

Also, do not overlook that the local Church itself is the greatest earthly sign of the Kingdom. The Church is to be an inexplicable new community of unity and love--Jesus said in John 17 that the world would know Jesus' Messiahship by the love of His disciples for one another.

I guess my position is kind of a hybrid of the first 3. We serve people because we love them, and because we know that in order to preach the Gospel effectively to them we need to give them signs of the Kingdom we preach.  

This is a work in progress for me, so I'm open to your thoughts.

Superman on ethics

Heard this statement made by the late Christopher Reeve to students at Yale the year before he died: “When matters of public policy are debated religion should not have a seat at the table.”

I want you to think for a minute about the absolute incoherence of that statement. How can we talk about any dimension of morality and not have a "religious commitment?" Everything we say about what is right or wrong is based on "religious" assumptions we make about human nature, even if we are not religious. To say that human beings have rights is based on the assumption that there is something special about a human being that separates a human from a cow. That is a religious assumption, and one that many Hindus do not share. To say that all races are equal is built on the assumption that the human beings are, in essence, the same, and thus have rights regardless of their educational status, wealth, or skin color. That is a religious assumption, and one that the Nazis and other white supremacists do not share.

Furthermore, secularism is its own religion. A secularist says, “The only things we can know must be scientifically proven.” The problem is that statement can’t itself be scientifically proven! That statement is itself a credo statement arising from the a priori belief that there is a) not a God who reveals Himself beyond scientific data and that science is thus the only way to knowledge and b) the belief that our minds are capable to accurately perceive the truth that is out there. These are faith assumptions.

David Klingenhoffer, a Jewish secularist said this in the LA Times... I find it quite insightful: "What we are observing in our society appears to be the struggle of religion against no religion. In actuality, it is the conflict of various religions, including secularism. If you object, saying that secularism is not a religion because it has no deity, let's remember that other religions, like Zen Buddhism, also lack belief in a god. What is a religion then? Simply this: a system of beliefs explaining where life comes from; what life means; and what we human beings must be doing with our few allotted years. Answers to these questions are not provable, they are taken on faith."

It is impossible to talk about the world, morality, and even science without bringing some faith assumptions to the table. What is not fair is to say that only you can bring yours.