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I hate flip flops

I unapologetically maintain a rule around our office: Staff guys cannot wear flip flops in the office. This "level" of rules around our office is very unusual because a) we are very casual in our dress and b) I'm not a very autocratic leader by nature.

That said, this is one I won't let go.

The reason(s) are simple:

1. Guys' feet are gross. Period. No one wants to look at your feet. Keep ugly stuff covered.
2. The guys with the grossest feet (i.e. guys with bright yellow fungus growing up through their toenails, jacked up cuticles, dry-flaky skin around their heels or corns or bunions or just all around mal-formed, hobbit-like feet) seem to be the least aware and most likely to display their feet for the whole world to look at. If anything, flip flops should be a privilege, not a right, for guys with normal looking feet. But then again, refer to (1) for clarification on that.
3. People's feet are generally dirty.
4. The little thong that goes between the big and second toe on a pair of flip-flops has to be the nastiest article of clothing in the history of civilization. The flip-flop thong resides in one of the dirtiest places in your body--your toe jam hollow--and it NEVER gets washed. Do you realize how disgustingly nasty that is? Think about how your shoes smell when you wear them 4-5 times without socks. I can imagine dirtier articles of clothing, but you keep them covered. And that's my point.

I think reasonable people would agree that loving men keep their feet ensconced in socks and shoes. *Special acknowledgement to Katie Baker for encouraging me to go public with this*

The Pastor's Success: Charles Spurgeon on Doctrinal Faithfulness vs. Evangelistic Effectiveness?

"Doctrinal preaching" and "effective evangelism" are often assumed to be at odds. I disagree with that with every fiber of my being.

Many of my "theologically astute" friends seem to think that God measures "our success" only by doctrinal faithfulness and that they shouldn't worry about how many people are coming to Christ. Recently, my research assistant found these quotes by one of Christian history's MOST DOCTRINAL preachers, Charles Spurgeon.

I would sooner bring one sinner to Jesus Christ than unpick all the mysteries of
the divine Word, for salvation is the thing we are to live for.--Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 22.263

If I never won souls, I would sigh till I did. It would break my heart over them
if I could break their hearts.  Though I can understand the possibility of anearnest sower never reaping, I cannot understand the possibility of an earnest sower being content not to reap.  I cannot comprehend any one of you Christian people trying to win souls and not having results, and being satisfied with our results. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 15.237

The Holy Spirit will move them first by first moving you.  If you can rest
without their being saved, they will rest, too.  But if you are filled with an
agony for them, if you cannot bear that they should be lost, you will soon find
that they are uneasy, too.  I hope you will get into such a state that you will
dream about your child perishing for lack of Christ, and start up at once and
begin to cry, "O God, give me converts, or I die." Then you will have converts.
 --Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 22.143-144

It is  a very solemn delusion when minsters think they are prospering, and yet do not hear of conversions. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 14.378

I would be willing to die if I could be honored by the Holy Spirit to win this mass of souls to God. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 13.204

The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perish sinners and his
blessed master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him.  It will so carry him
away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others.  He will be
like the brave fireman, who cares not for the scorch or the heat, so that he
may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity has set his heart.
--New Park Street Pulpit 5.474-475

Do you see this passion among the doctrinally deep? I am no fan of doctrinally shallow preaching because I think that it wins people only to an experience and not really to God. But where is evangelistic passion of, say, a John Knox who prayed, "God, give me Scotland OR I DIE!"

The Absurdity of Seminary 'Spiritual Formation' Classes

It seems that I'm hearing more and more about "spiritual formation" classes in seminaries and divinity schools these days. The question begging to be asked is, "How can spiritual formation not be coming out of the Biblical exegesis, systematic theology, pastoral ministry, and church history courses?" Have we so divorced those subjects from worship and devotion that they are simply lifeless academic exercises, and so we must add in spiritual formation later? What are we teaching people about God at these divinity schools?

I'm not saying that many of these schools don't NEED spiritual formation classes, I'm bemoaning the fact that their Christian theology classes are so Godless that they need to supplement the study of God with mystical techniques from other traditions so that students can get a spiritual "fix." How can our study of God's word be so dead that we need to turn to other religions to be spiritual?

John Piper touched on this topic in a paper written quite a wile ago. He quoted J. Gresham Machen, who recounted his study the German theologian Wilhelm Hermann with these words:

My chief feeling with reference to him is already one of the deepest reverence. . . . I have been thrown all into confusion by what he says - so much deeper is his devotion to Christ than anything I have known in myself during the past few years. . . . He believes that Jesus is the one thing in all the world that inspires absolute confidence, and an absolute, joyful subjection; that through Jesus we come into communion with the living God and are made free from the world. . . . His trust in Christ is (practically, if anything, even more truly than theoretically) unbounded.

For Machen, studying the word in the Greek Bible produced Spirit-filled spiritual formation.

It's like when people distinguish "worship" at church from the preaching... i.e. "I like it when the church does most of the worship after the preaching." Why doesn't our preaching take people so deeply into the heart of God that people worship during it?