Friday, July 18, 2008
Getting the 'Stuff' Out of the Way
Because of the many cringe-worthy statements being made from the platform at the Lakeland Outpouring, I'm determined to focus on the great things God is doing there among the leadership. Last night's meeting presented a prime opportunity to do this as John and Carol Arnott from the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship sought to follow the Holy Spirit's movement amidst a crowd of eager, hungry people from across the world. The international flavor was, as always, a beautiful peek into the kingdom, yet what struck me most was a statement John made while praying for a lineup of individuals affected by spinal injuries.
After a woman came up hobbling onstage with a cane—a result of a major car accident four years prior that claimed her daughter's life—and left able to walk on her own, John said this:
If there's anything we need more of at Lakeland, it's the humility and transparency John showed with this simple, somewhat off-the-cuff comment. John's been praying for people's healings for years, yet I love that he was honest enough to explain what was going on at that moment and offer insight into the atmosphere of healing. We desperately need more of this—particularly in Lakeland—to diffuse the "mystical," elitist sense that surrounds healing in certain charismatic circles. Healing has become a complex issue partly because of the culture we've created around it—the "why not me?" questions, the level-of-faith game, the prayer flair, etc. Yet throughout the night, John reminded people of how simple it really is. God does the work, we receive His gift. At one point, while speaking of God's fatherly heart, John cited Luke 12:32: "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
If only we—yes, I'm talking to leaders—could believe this and keep things simple. Then maybe we'd get some of this "stuff" out of the way and let God to really move among His people.
After a woman came up hobbling onstage with a cane—a result of a major car accident four years prior that claimed her daughter's life—and left able to walk on her own, John said this:
"Maybe you didn't notice … but while I was talking to [some other people], Carol was busy ministering to this lady, going deeper and unraveling some of the stuff that maybe had been getting in the way of her heart receiving that healing. You and I are learning to do this. We're not nearly as good at it as Jesus was—at least I'm not. But I'm aspiring to that. I want to get to the place where everything is healed instantaneously. Don't you? Wouldn't that be great? In the meanwhile, sometimes we take a little more time getting the stuff and the baggage out of the way."
If there's anything we need more of at Lakeland, it's the humility and transparency John showed with this simple, somewhat off-the-cuff comment. John's been praying for people's healings for years, yet I love that he was honest enough to explain what was going on at that moment and offer insight into the atmosphere of healing. We desperately need more of this—particularly in Lakeland—to diffuse the "mystical," elitist sense that surrounds healing in certain charismatic circles. Healing has become a complex issue partly because of the culture we've created around it—the "why not me?" questions, the level-of-faith game, the prayer flair, etc. Yet throughout the night, John reminded people of how simple it really is. God does the work, we receive His gift. At one point, while speaking of God's fatherly heart, John cited Luke 12:32: "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
If only we—yes, I'm talking to leaders—could believe this and keep things simple. Then maybe we'd get some of this "stuff" out of the way and let God to really move among His people.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Pastors Defending Marriage
I don't usually opt to blog on someone else's behalf, much less post someone else's e-mail/PSA as a blog ... but I'm making a well-deserved exception in this case. Read the letter below sent out a few days ago from a group of concerned pastors and you'll see why. Then, if you live in Florida, Arizona or California, go make a difference!
----------------------------------------------------------
July 10, 2008
To: Our Pastor and Christian Leader Friends in Florida and Arizona
From: Your Pastor and Christian Leader Friends in California
RE: Your Invitation to join 2,000 California pastors in a July 30 Conference Call to defend marriage on November 4 (Election Day)
Greetings,
We are a collection of California pastors writing to pastors. We apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but we feel the seriousness of the situation merits it. Our three states have something in common. On November 4, California, Arizona and Florida will be voting on the definition of marriage.
In California, we are reeling from a May 15 ruling of the CA Supreme Court which overturned our Family Code (Proposition 22, approved in 2000 by 61.4% of the voters) which declared that marriage consisted of the union of a man and a woman. As a result, gay “marriage” became legal here on June 16 at 5:01 PM.
Unlike Massachusetts, where gay “marriage” cannot be “exported” to other states, anyone can get married in California, due to the lack of a residency requirement, and then return to their home state, requiring their gay “marriage” to be recognized.
Here in California (as in Florida), we recently reached the needed number of signatures for a November 4 referendum when we will vote on the definition of marriage again, this time as a state constitutional amendment, so the CA Supreme Court cannot overturn the will of the people.
Candidly, we, as California Bible-believing pastors and churches, are vulnerable at this time. There is no state protection that permits us to decline performing gay “marriages” (contrary to what appears as one small paragraph on page 117 of the CA Supreme Court ruling). Somewhere and sometime in our state, a gay couple will walk into an evangelical church, or a conservative Catholic Church, and demand (under California State law) to be married.
We are responding to this by working to pass CA Proposition 8 which will add an amendment to the state constitution stating that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. To accomplish this, many pastors and Christian leaders have united.
Over 1,600 of us (an unofficial “California Pastors Rapid Response Team") joined together to protect marriage in a June 25 Statewide Pastors Conference Call. We gathered at 101 locations throughout the state. Now we are preparing for our next conference call.
A THREE STATE CONFERENCE CALL – INVITING ARIZONA AND FLORIDA TO JOIN US
Two thousand pastors and Christian leaders across California are coming together at 200+ locations (host churches) for a statewide Pastors Strategic Protect Marriage Conference Call (1 hour and 45 minutes) on Wednesday, July 30, at 10 AM in California and Florida, and 1 PM in Florida.
And here is our reason for writing. May we invite all pastors and Christian leaders from Florida and Arizona to join us for this gathering? Would it be beneficial for us to have “three state solidarity” on this issue from now until November 4, Election Day? If so, would you please forward this email invitation to every Florida and Arizona pastor and Christian leader you know.
NEEDED
Here in California, it is our goal to have, before November 4, 500 locations with 5,000 pastors and Christian leaders coming together in future conference calls in order to activate (along with others) 8 million men and women to vote for marriage, as God ordained it. With 7 million votes, we win it. With 8 million votes, we beam an indisputable message!
Now we invite you in Arizona and Florida to join with us in this great three state conference call.
HOSTING A SITE
If you, as a pastor, are willing to host a gathering of Florida or Arizona pastors and Christian leaders at your church, or you know of a pastor who will host, please contact Chris Clark at marriagequestion4@skylinechurch.org if from Arizona or marriagequestion5@skylinechurch.org if from Florida, or call 619-415-5453 ASAP if you are willing to host.
SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION
We plan to offer the conference call in simultaneous Spanish translation.
BRING STAFF AND LEADERS
You may want to host a site in your church so that it makes it easier to bring your pastoral staff and key leaders. If you do not host a site, be assured that assistant pastors and key select lay leaders of ministries are welcome – at any site.
WHAT IS NEEDED TO HOST A SITE
In our June 25 statewide pastors call, we offered only audio capability (with some 200 power point slides for the 90 minute event). For our July 30 three-state call, we hope to present two technological options for site hosts:
(1) Webinar (a seminar broadcast via the internet) or
(2) Conference call (such as we did for our June 25 gathering).
We are currently testing our capability to broadcast this and future conference calls to sites that have a broadband (Cable, DSL, or T1) internet connection for the webinar. Future emails will communicate the details for the site hosts.
If we are able to go live with the webinar format in July, sites must be able to project the internet-based presentation (audio and video) from a computer. If you do not have broadband, and prefer to utilize the conference call format, you only need to have speaker-phone capability that can be adequately amplified, along with the ability to magnify or project a PowerPoint presentation. For those who have broadband: Webinar participants will not need anyone on-site to run the PowerPoint presentation – the presentation and the audio will be streamed to your site via GoToWebinar.com. For those who do not have broadband: The traditional conference call will be an audio transmission, with a PowerPoint presentation available for conference call sites to show while the audio plays, making the event more "informationally friendly." (A person at that site must listen to a separate conference call giving PowerPoint instruction and cues.)
Be assured that the information shared will be extremely beneficial for the future of the cause of Christ. Saying it another way, it is worth canceling all other appointments in order to be present at one of these locations.
FORWARD AND ALERT US TO NEW EMAIL ADDRESSES
Additionally, please forward this email to as many Florida and Arizona pastors and Christian leaders as you can - or email us from Florida at marriagequestion3@skylinechurch.org and from Arizona at marriagequestion2@skylinechurch.org with the names of pastors and Christian leaders so that we can keep them informed of future developments.
COURAGEOUS PASTORS
If you are activated on this issue, may we take a small detour and affirm you? Thank you for being bold brothers and sisters in this struggle! Thank you for standing for the truth of Scripture, when it is not popular to do so. The present culture may be unkind to you. History, however, will be most kind to you.
Being a biblically-based pastor today costs. The Gospel always has. It takes courage to pastor biblically today. We stand together with you!
OUR LEGAL REALITIES HERE IN CALIFORNIA
On page 117 of the 121 page May 15 California Supreme Court ruling, it supposedly exempts pastors from being forced to perform gay “weddings,” stating the following: “Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs. (CA Const., art. I, § 4.);”
It may appear that pastors have "dodged this bullet." Candidly, we have not. The paragraph above, which sounds so consoling to Bible-believing pastors, needs to be fully understood. In legal terms, since the court case was not whether or not pastors should have to perform homosexual weddings, this paragraph is not legally relevant. If the case had been about the issue of whether or not pastors had to perform same sex marriages against their will, then that paragraph would have carried legal "weight." But the court case was only about whether same sex marriages were allowable in California. Thus that seemingly comforting paragraph is of little to no value.
Succinctly stated, we are - according to the best legal minds we have talked to - vulnerable. Attorneys defending us would make their case on a federal basis, but not, as we understand, on current state law. What will we face in California, Florida and Arizona if we fail to defend marriage?
For an answer, let us look at what has happened to our Christian brothers in Canada and Sweden and their losses of religious freedoms. Some have been charged for speaking out on the practice of homosexuality. Others have been tried. Some have been jailed. The Bible is now viewed as hate speech. Pastors are viewed as hatemongers.
Coming closer home, what has happened to the Methodist camp meeting in Ocean Grove, New Jersey when two lesbians demanded to have their civil union ceremony on church property? The lesbians could have chosen any part of New Jersey’s long shoreline, but they wanted to be married on one location owned by a church related group. The State of New Jersey, siding with the couple, took the tax exemption away from a portion of their property. Now the church campground is involved in a draining lawsuit. What is ahead for us – if we fail to preserve the definition of marriage?
Succinctly stated, (and unlike other issues), this is a survival issue, the survival of religious freedoms, the capacity to freely preach the gospel.
It is important to note that it is totally legal for churches and pastors to speak out clearly on this issue. Ordination did not deprive you of your religious liberties. Churches can (and should) speak out on moral issues.
Equally important is the fact that marriage is not ultimately a civil issue. It is biblical. It is a moral issue. Marriage, as you know, predated civil governance.
FLUIDITY
How are we to understand the changing legal climate? Christian attorneys will update us in the Wednesday, July 30 conference call. Several attorneys will be on hand to bring information on unfolding legal realities, including the recent legal attempts by the radical secularists to disqualify the upcoming ballot on marriage here in California.
UNFOLDING STRATEGY
In addition, we will cover the strategy for preparing for (and winning) the California, Arizona and Florida Constitutional Marriage Amendment votes in November. This is a winnable war. And, unfortunately, the freedom to proclaim the Gospel hinges on the outcome of this election.
CALIFORNIA YOUTH / YOUNG ADULT STRATEGY
In California, there is exciting news coming regarding the activation and training of armies of youth and young adults across the state.
We hope that sharing about these “game plans” will energize you with the emerging strategy in your respective state. We know that you, in Florida and Arizona will, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, develop their own plans. We are not expecting you to replicate what we are doing here. We do want to encourage each other, however.
CALIFORNIA MEDIA STRATEGY
We would like to share with you what we are learning here regarding a media strategy. Frank Schubert (Schubert-Flint Public Affairs Company,Sacramento) and Ron Prentice (ProtectMarriage.com) will share the broader, California statewide media strategies, hoping these insights will be helpful to our Florida and Arizona brothers and sisters.
FASTING AND PRAYER
Here in California, we are focused on a 100-Day Prayer Period will launch July 28, ending at the election, November 4. Within that 100 day period, there will be a 40-Day Statewide Fast, from September 24 to November 2. Individuals may fast portions or all of the 40 days, as they are led, or they may fast in “relays” as teams. If you feel it is pleasing to the Holy Spirit, we invite our pastor friends in Florida and Arizona to join us in this prayer and fasting period.
(Simply as a point of information, may we share regarding one more event here: A culmination of this 40-day period will be The Call (see www.thecall.com). The Call California will be held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, on Saturday, November 1, from 10 AM to 10 PM – involving 50,000+ men and women of God from every denomination – all united to create a climate of ongoing prayer and fasting in our state and across the nation.
We want to emphasize one more time that we are NOT sharing our events here in California because they are to be “laid on” Florida and Arizona. We merely share them to be an encouragement to each other. We will, in this prayer and share process, learn from you as well.
KEY ISSUE: REVIVAL
In our hearts, we know that what is really needed is more than a voting victory in November. What is needed is revival and an avalanche of Holy Spirit-given evangelism. That is why we pray.
WEBSITES
If you have interest in listening to any or all of our 90-minute June 25 Statewide Pastors Conference Call, and to view the corresponding 200 PowerPoint slides, go to www.skylinechurch.org/marriage08.php and type in "marriage08" as a password. In addition, there are many practical materials that are applicable to all three of our states available at www.ProtectMarriageSD.com. Considerably more resources are located at www.ProtectMarriage.com
URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED NOW
Most importantly, join with us Wednesday, July 30, at 10 AM in California and Arizona, and 1 PM in Florida. Please consider hosting a site at your church. Contact Chris Clark at marriagequestion4@skylinechurch.org if from Arizona or marriagequestion5@skylinechurch.org if from Florida, or call 619-415-5453 ASAP if you are willing to host. Online registration for the meeting will be available on www.protectmarriagesd.com Please register on-line to insure sufficient materials are available for those attending at each location.
Brothers and sisters, this IS winnable!
We pray blessings on you – Florida and Arizona – this day.
Your pastor friends… in this ultimately victorious battle,
Jim Garlow, Skyline Church, San Diego
Chris Clark, East Clairemont Baptist Church, San Diego
Miles McPherson, The Rock Church, San Diego
Jack Hibbs, Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills (LA area)
Jim Franklin, Cornerstone Church, Fresno
Dudley Rutherford, Shepherd of the Hills, Porter Ranch (LA area)
Timothy Winters, Bayview Baptist Church, San Diego
Along with 1600 other CA pastors and Christian leaders who love Florida and Arizona
----------------------------------------------------------
July 10, 2008
To: Our Pastor and Christian Leader Friends in Florida and Arizona
From: Your Pastor and Christian Leader Friends in California
RE: Your Invitation to join 2,000 California pastors in a July 30 Conference Call to defend marriage on November 4 (Election Day)
Greetings,
We are a collection of California pastors writing to pastors. We apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but we feel the seriousness of the situation merits it. Our three states have something in common. On November 4, California, Arizona and Florida will be voting on the definition of marriage.
In California, we are reeling from a May 15 ruling of the CA Supreme Court which overturned our Family Code (Proposition 22, approved in 2000 by 61.4% of the voters) which declared that marriage consisted of the union of a man and a woman. As a result, gay “marriage” became legal here on June 16 at 5:01 PM.
Unlike Massachusetts, where gay “marriage” cannot be “exported” to other states, anyone can get married in California, due to the lack of a residency requirement, and then return to their home state, requiring their gay “marriage” to be recognized.
Here in California (as in Florida), we recently reached the needed number of signatures for a November 4 referendum when we will vote on the definition of marriage again, this time as a state constitutional amendment, so the CA Supreme Court cannot overturn the will of the people.
Candidly, we, as California Bible-believing pastors and churches, are vulnerable at this time. There is no state protection that permits us to decline performing gay “marriages” (contrary to what appears as one small paragraph on page 117 of the CA Supreme Court ruling). Somewhere and sometime in our state, a gay couple will walk into an evangelical church, or a conservative Catholic Church, and demand (under California State law) to be married.
We are responding to this by working to pass CA Proposition 8 which will add an amendment to the state constitution stating that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. To accomplish this, many pastors and Christian leaders have united.
Over 1,600 of us (an unofficial “California Pastors Rapid Response Team") joined together to protect marriage in a June 25 Statewide Pastors Conference Call. We gathered at 101 locations throughout the state. Now we are preparing for our next conference call.
A THREE STATE CONFERENCE CALL – INVITING ARIZONA AND FLORIDA TO JOIN US
Two thousand pastors and Christian leaders across California are coming together at 200+ locations (host churches) for a statewide Pastors Strategic Protect Marriage Conference Call (1 hour and 45 minutes) on Wednesday, July 30, at 10 AM in California and Florida, and 1 PM in Florida.
And here is our reason for writing. May we invite all pastors and Christian leaders from Florida and Arizona to join us for this gathering? Would it be beneficial for us to have “three state solidarity” on this issue from now until November 4, Election Day? If so, would you please forward this email invitation to every Florida and Arizona pastor and Christian leader you know.
NEEDED
Here in California, it is our goal to have, before November 4, 500 locations with 5,000 pastors and Christian leaders coming together in future conference calls in order to activate (along with others) 8 million men and women to vote for marriage, as God ordained it. With 7 million votes, we win it. With 8 million votes, we beam an indisputable message!
Now we invite you in Arizona and Florida to join with us in this great three state conference call.
HOSTING A SITE
If you, as a pastor, are willing to host a gathering of Florida or Arizona pastors and Christian leaders at your church, or you know of a pastor who will host, please contact Chris Clark at marriagequestion4@skylinechurch.org if from Arizona or marriagequestion5@skylinechurch.org if from Florida, or call 619-415-5453 ASAP if you are willing to host.
SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION
We plan to offer the conference call in simultaneous Spanish translation.
BRING STAFF AND LEADERS
You may want to host a site in your church so that it makes it easier to bring your pastoral staff and key leaders. If you do not host a site, be assured that assistant pastors and key select lay leaders of ministries are welcome – at any site.
WHAT IS NEEDED TO HOST A SITE
In our June 25 statewide pastors call, we offered only audio capability (with some 200 power point slides for the 90 minute event). For our July 30 three-state call, we hope to present two technological options for site hosts:
(1) Webinar (a seminar broadcast via the internet) or
(2) Conference call (such as we did for our June 25 gathering).
We are currently testing our capability to broadcast this and future conference calls to sites that have a broadband (Cable, DSL, or T1) internet connection for the webinar. Future emails will communicate the details for the site hosts.
If we are able to go live with the webinar format in July, sites must be able to project the internet-based presentation (audio and video) from a computer. If you do not have broadband, and prefer to utilize the conference call format, you only need to have speaker-phone capability that can be adequately amplified, along with the ability to magnify or project a PowerPoint presentation. For those who have broadband: Webinar participants will not need anyone on-site to run the PowerPoint presentation – the presentation and the audio will be streamed to your site via GoToWebinar.com. For those who do not have broadband: The traditional conference call will be an audio transmission, with a PowerPoint presentation available for conference call sites to show while the audio plays, making the event more "informationally friendly." (A person at that site must listen to a separate conference call giving PowerPoint instruction and cues.)
Be assured that the information shared will be extremely beneficial for the future of the cause of Christ. Saying it another way, it is worth canceling all other appointments in order to be present at one of these locations.
FORWARD AND ALERT US TO NEW EMAIL ADDRESSES
Additionally, please forward this email to as many Florida and Arizona pastors and Christian leaders as you can - or email us from Florida at marriagequestion3@skylinechurch.org and from Arizona at marriagequestion2@skylinechurch.org with the names of pastors and Christian leaders so that we can keep them informed of future developments.
COURAGEOUS PASTORS
If you are activated on this issue, may we take a small detour and affirm you? Thank you for being bold brothers and sisters in this struggle! Thank you for standing for the truth of Scripture, when it is not popular to do so. The present culture may be unkind to you. History, however, will be most kind to you.
Being a biblically-based pastor today costs. The Gospel always has. It takes courage to pastor biblically today. We stand together with you!
OUR LEGAL REALITIES HERE IN CALIFORNIA
On page 117 of the 121 page May 15 California Supreme Court ruling, it supposedly exempts pastors from being forced to perform gay “weddings,” stating the following: “Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs. (CA Const., art. I, § 4.);”
It may appear that pastors have "dodged this bullet." Candidly, we have not. The paragraph above, which sounds so consoling to Bible-believing pastors, needs to be fully understood. In legal terms, since the court case was not whether or not pastors should have to perform homosexual weddings, this paragraph is not legally relevant. If the case had been about the issue of whether or not pastors had to perform same sex marriages against their will, then that paragraph would have carried legal "weight." But the court case was only about whether same sex marriages were allowable in California. Thus that seemingly comforting paragraph is of little to no value.
Succinctly stated, we are - according to the best legal minds we have talked to - vulnerable. Attorneys defending us would make their case on a federal basis, but not, as we understand, on current state law. What will we face in California, Florida and Arizona if we fail to defend marriage?
For an answer, let us look at what has happened to our Christian brothers in Canada and Sweden and their losses of religious freedoms. Some have been charged for speaking out on the practice of homosexuality. Others have been tried. Some have been jailed. The Bible is now viewed as hate speech. Pastors are viewed as hatemongers.
Coming closer home, what has happened to the Methodist camp meeting in Ocean Grove, New Jersey when two lesbians demanded to have their civil union ceremony on church property? The lesbians could have chosen any part of New Jersey’s long shoreline, but they wanted to be married on one location owned by a church related group. The State of New Jersey, siding with the couple, took the tax exemption away from a portion of their property. Now the church campground is involved in a draining lawsuit. What is ahead for us – if we fail to preserve the definition of marriage?
Succinctly stated, (and unlike other issues), this is a survival issue, the survival of religious freedoms, the capacity to freely preach the gospel.
It is important to note that it is totally legal for churches and pastors to speak out clearly on this issue. Ordination did not deprive you of your religious liberties. Churches can (and should) speak out on moral issues.
Equally important is the fact that marriage is not ultimately a civil issue. It is biblical. It is a moral issue. Marriage, as you know, predated civil governance.
FLUIDITY
How are we to understand the changing legal climate? Christian attorneys will update us in the Wednesday, July 30 conference call. Several attorneys will be on hand to bring information on unfolding legal realities, including the recent legal attempts by the radical secularists to disqualify the upcoming ballot on marriage here in California.
UNFOLDING STRATEGY
In addition, we will cover the strategy for preparing for (and winning) the California, Arizona and Florida Constitutional Marriage Amendment votes in November. This is a winnable war. And, unfortunately, the freedom to proclaim the Gospel hinges on the outcome of this election.
CALIFORNIA YOUTH / YOUNG ADULT STRATEGY
In California, there is exciting news coming regarding the activation and training of armies of youth and young adults across the state.
We hope that sharing about these “game plans” will energize you with the emerging strategy in your respective state. We know that you, in Florida and Arizona will, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, develop their own plans. We are not expecting you to replicate what we are doing here. We do want to encourage each other, however.
CALIFORNIA MEDIA STRATEGY
We would like to share with you what we are learning here regarding a media strategy. Frank Schubert (Schubert-Flint Public Affairs Company,Sacramento) and Ron Prentice (ProtectMarriage.com) will share the broader, California statewide media strategies, hoping these insights will be helpful to our Florida and Arizona brothers and sisters.
FASTING AND PRAYER
Here in California, we are focused on a 100-Day Prayer Period will launch July 28, ending at the election, November 4. Within that 100 day period, there will be a 40-Day Statewide Fast, from September 24 to November 2. Individuals may fast portions or all of the 40 days, as they are led, or they may fast in “relays” as teams. If you feel it is pleasing to the Holy Spirit, we invite our pastor friends in Florida and Arizona to join us in this prayer and fasting period.
(Simply as a point of information, may we share regarding one more event here: A culmination of this 40-day period will be The Call (see www.thecall.com). The Call California will be held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, on Saturday, November 1, from 10 AM to 10 PM – involving 50,000+ men and women of God from every denomination – all united to create a climate of ongoing prayer and fasting in our state and across the nation.
We want to emphasize one more time that we are NOT sharing our events here in California because they are to be “laid on” Florida and Arizona. We merely share them to be an encouragement to each other. We will, in this prayer and share process, learn from you as well.
KEY ISSUE: REVIVAL
In our hearts, we know that what is really needed is more than a voting victory in November. What is needed is revival and an avalanche of Holy Spirit-given evangelism. That is why we pray.
WEBSITES
If you have interest in listening to any or all of our 90-minute June 25 Statewide Pastors Conference Call, and to view the corresponding 200 PowerPoint slides, go to www.skylinechurch.org/marriage08.php and type in "marriage08" as a password. In addition, there are many practical materials that are applicable to all three of our states available at www.ProtectMarriageSD.com. Considerably more resources are located at www.ProtectMarriage.com
URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED NOW
Most importantly, join with us Wednesday, July 30, at 10 AM in California and Arizona, and 1 PM in Florida. Please consider hosting a site at your church. Contact Chris Clark at marriagequestion4@skylinechurch.org if from Arizona or marriagequestion5@skylinechurch.org if from Florida, or call 619-415-5453 ASAP if you are willing to host. Online registration for the meeting will be available on www.protectmarriagesd.com Please register on-line to insure sufficient materials are available for those attending at each location.
Brothers and sisters, this IS winnable!
We pray blessings on you – Florida and Arizona – this day.
Your pastor friends… in this ultimately victorious battle,
Jim Garlow, Skyline Church, San Diego
Chris Clark, East Clairemont Baptist Church, San Diego
Miles McPherson, The Rock Church, San Diego
Jack Hibbs, Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills (LA area)
Jim Franklin, Cornerstone Church, Fresno
Dudley Rutherford, Shepherd of the Hills, Porter Ranch (LA area)
Timothy Winters, Bayview Baptist Church, San Diego
Along with 1600 other CA pastors and Christian leaders who love Florida and Arizona
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Culture Clash, Part II
The Lakeland Outpouring is hot. Not only is that obvious by the tens of thousands who’ve trekked to Florida from near and far, it’s just as evident by the heated responses you can get online these days by simply including words like Lakeland, Todd Bentley, outpouring, healing and revival in a blog. As meetings hit the three-month mark today, people are still asking the same question: “Is it really revival?” (For an answer to that, check out the upcoming issue of Ministry Today in September, which includes an array of opinions from seasoned revivalists and respected leaders.)
Yet equally as pronounced—and fascinating, in my opinion—are the virtual tongue-lashings you’re bound to get nowadays no matter how balanced (or unbalanced) you try to be with your comments regarding the Lakeland scene. No, I’m not just reacting to those who posted their thoughts regarding my previous writing—which were mild compared to most online threads I’ve followed. What intrigues me more is the all-or-nothing approach so many online opinionators have adopted.
It’s called throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I know because I’ve been prone to some major baby-tossing myself. In fact, not to one-up the Apostle Paul, but it wasn’t too long ago that I could’ve been nominated as Chief Tosser among tossers.
When I threw myself into the charismania waters of the Toronto Blessing, Pensacola Revival, prophetic movement and other moves that have come in the past 15-plus years, I often struggled with making sense of some of the “extra-biblical” matters I regularly encountered. Having come from a Southern Baptist, “if it’s not in the Bible, it’s not of God” background, it was already a bit of a stretch for me to explain what exactly went on when someone was “slain in the Spirit.” At times I wanted to jump out of the flow because I was so frustrated by the (often unspoken) emphasis on the extremes, the manifestations and teachings that required reading between the lines of Scripture. And I grew tired of playing Duck Duck Goose with identifying what was “truly” in the Spirit and what wasn’t. Like many who have made a similar leap of faith, I still wrestle with these issues.
The problem, however, is that as soon as you admit to such a struggle in certain circles, your “Spirit-filled” level supposedly plummets while your “religious spirit” quotient rapidly rises. To appear “with it” and in the Spirit, you either suck it up and withhold all questioning or, like many I’ve seen during these years, you get thrown out of the rapids and left to sit alone on the slippery slope of the riverbank. With no answers or resolution in sight, your questioning quickly morphs into acerbic criticism, which turns into pure bitterness—which eventually leads to dismissing the whole Spirit-filled experience. Most of us know at least half a dozen people who’ve been down this path and ended up tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
This is what I’m questioning when I mention the Lakeland Outpouring. It’s the culture we’ve created. A culture that is enveloped in the Lakeland experience and has been on full display at each of the previously mentioned moves of God. It’s a culture in which miraculous healings are fused with a flesh-fest of celebrity, where people can experience unprecedented heights in authentic, Christ-exalting worship and yet hours later leave a meeting utterly confused. And although this environment may propel many deeper into Holy Spirit matters, it also leaves countless wounded and abandoned in its wake.
I am convinced God is trying to redeem such a culture through this current move. As I hoped to convey in my previous blog posting (but obviously didn’t), we are an odd but beautiful mixture of flesh and spirit: 100 percent spirit and 100 percent flesh, as was our Savior, Jesus. Christ never once abandoned the spirit realm, but neither did He forsake His status as a Spirit-filled container of flesh. He did His Father’s will through both, but in doing so, He had to overcome the culture surrounding Him.
I believe the same can be done at Lakeland. Obviously, it doesn’t help when people jump to the conclusion that this outpouring is entirely “not of God” or, even more presumptuously, that it’s the work of the devil. That’s just as bad a case of baby-tossing as those who’ve given up entirely on the charismatic journey. Can the enemy creep into our misguided, scripturally unsound interpretation of what the Holy Spirit wants to do in Lakeland? You bet. Can leaders get caught up in the charismatic celebrity culture that rears its ugly head (as it’s always done) during such a series of meetings? Yep. But having seen firsthand the hunger among God’s people—including Todd Bentley and those leaders associated with Lakeland—for an authentic, Holy Spirit-saturated move, I think it would be somewhat foolish to say God isn’t at work. As always, He’s simply waiting on us.
Our challenge, then, is to not point the finger exclusively at Bentley or other leaders, though they embody much of this confusing culture. Neither is it to foolishly dismiss the entire outpouring as a farce. Instead, let’s seek to establish God’s kingdom culture in the midst of the mangled one we’ve created. And that, I believe, includes repenting for being able to coast down the winding river of recent movements while seeing a legion of lost, discarded and confused believers sitting on the banks, contemplating their complete exit from faith—because of us, no less.
Yet equally as pronounced—and fascinating, in my opinion—are the virtual tongue-lashings you’re bound to get nowadays no matter how balanced (or unbalanced) you try to be with your comments regarding the Lakeland scene. No, I’m not just reacting to those who posted their thoughts regarding my previous writing—which were mild compared to most online threads I’ve followed. What intrigues me more is the all-or-nothing approach so many online opinionators have adopted.
It’s called throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I know because I’ve been prone to some major baby-tossing myself. In fact, not to one-up the Apostle Paul, but it wasn’t too long ago that I could’ve been nominated as Chief Tosser among tossers.
When I threw myself into the charismania waters of the Toronto Blessing, Pensacola Revival, prophetic movement and other moves that have come in the past 15-plus years, I often struggled with making sense of some of the “extra-biblical” matters I regularly encountered. Having come from a Southern Baptist, “if it’s not in the Bible, it’s not of God” background, it was already a bit of a stretch for me to explain what exactly went on when someone was “slain in the Spirit.” At times I wanted to jump out of the flow because I was so frustrated by the (often unspoken) emphasis on the extremes, the manifestations and teachings that required reading between the lines of Scripture. And I grew tired of playing Duck Duck Goose with identifying what was “truly” in the Spirit and what wasn’t. Like many who have made a similar leap of faith, I still wrestle with these issues.
The problem, however, is that as soon as you admit to such a struggle in certain circles, your “Spirit-filled” level supposedly plummets while your “religious spirit” quotient rapidly rises. To appear “with it” and in the Spirit, you either suck it up and withhold all questioning or, like many I’ve seen during these years, you get thrown out of the rapids and left to sit alone on the slippery slope of the riverbank. With no answers or resolution in sight, your questioning quickly morphs into acerbic criticism, which turns into pure bitterness—which eventually leads to dismissing the whole Spirit-filled experience. Most of us know at least half a dozen people who’ve been down this path and ended up tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
This is what I’m questioning when I mention the Lakeland Outpouring. It’s the culture we’ve created. A culture that is enveloped in the Lakeland experience and has been on full display at each of the previously mentioned moves of God. It’s a culture in which miraculous healings are fused with a flesh-fest of celebrity, where people can experience unprecedented heights in authentic, Christ-exalting worship and yet hours later leave a meeting utterly confused. And although this environment may propel many deeper into Holy Spirit matters, it also leaves countless wounded and abandoned in its wake.
I am convinced God is trying to redeem such a culture through this current move. As I hoped to convey in my previous blog posting (but obviously didn’t), we are an odd but beautiful mixture of flesh and spirit: 100 percent spirit and 100 percent flesh, as was our Savior, Jesus. Christ never once abandoned the spirit realm, but neither did He forsake His status as a Spirit-filled container of flesh. He did His Father’s will through both, but in doing so, He had to overcome the culture surrounding Him.
I believe the same can be done at Lakeland. Obviously, it doesn’t help when people jump to the conclusion that this outpouring is entirely “not of God” or, even more presumptuously, that it’s the work of the devil. That’s just as bad a case of baby-tossing as those who’ve given up entirely on the charismatic journey. Can the enemy creep into our misguided, scripturally unsound interpretation of what the Holy Spirit wants to do in Lakeland? You bet. Can leaders get caught up in the charismatic celebrity culture that rears its ugly head (as it’s always done) during such a series of meetings? Yep. But having seen firsthand the hunger among God’s people—including Todd Bentley and those leaders associated with Lakeland—for an authentic, Holy Spirit-saturated move, I think it would be somewhat foolish to say God isn’t at work. As always, He’s simply waiting on us.
Our challenge, then, is to not point the finger exclusively at Bentley or other leaders, though they embody much of this confusing culture. Neither is it to foolishly dismiss the entire outpouring as a farce. Instead, let’s seek to establish God’s kingdom culture in the midst of the mangled one we’ve created. And that, I believe, includes repenting for being able to coast down the winding river of recent movements while seeing a legion of lost, discarded and confused believers sitting on the banks, contemplating their complete exit from faith—because of us, no less.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Culture Clash
After experiencing the Lakeland Outpouring in person for the first time earlier this week, I returned home feeling like I’d just swum in a pool filled with oil and water. Every move of God involves a clash of elements: sin vs. salvation, flesh vs. spirit, pride vs. repentance … the list goes on. Yet I believe God’s current movement in Lakeland is exposing the mixed elements that have comprised the charismatic church culture for at least a generation now. The good news? Something’s gotta give. And my hope is that, like water yielding to oil, we’re the ones who make room for God.
Monday night’s apostolic commissioning of evangelist Todd Bentley began with the ceremony’s organizer, Peter Wagner, calling it “an event [that] could well have historic implications not only for the Lakeland Outpouring, but also for our nation and for many other nations of the world.” Those opening remarks set the stage for what simultaneously became an admirable display of ministerial government and a nauseating example of what’s wrong with our movement today.
One minute we were being reminded—as has been the case throughout the Outpouring—that this was all about God’s glory, that it had little to do with Todd Bentley. The next, Bentley was announcing to GOD TV viewers and those among the crowd of 10,000 what cities Todd Bentley would be visiting and what stadiums Todd Bentley would be filling in the months to come. One moment the emphasis was being placed on how revival fires would spread through average, uncommissioned Joes; the next moment, we were presumptuously instructed to “hold our applause until the end” of Wagner’s roll call of the big names in attendance.
I, like most people, am all for God showing up through unconventional means. I love it when He surprises some of us and offends the rest by using the underdogs, the oft-forgottens, the unimpressive and the downright weird among us. It comes as no surprise to me that God might use a sold-out, tattooed, pierced 30-something to stir hunger among His people. And above all the distractions, criticism and controversy surrounding the Lakeland Outpouring, this is clear: God’s people are hungry. Starving, to be exact. We are all—leaders included—desperate for God’s glory to change this earth and bring His kingdom. That, along with such elements as repentance and holiness, lays the foundation for true revival.
But I wonder how firm our foundation currently is given the celebrity-centric ministry culture we’ve created. We cry out for a move of God that’s pronounced through nameless, faceless people, yet we’re all too often reminded of who’s sitting on stage, who’s in the building, who’s holding the microphone, who’s attending what conference, who’s leading worship, who’s prophesying at the church across town …
Is anyone else seeing a culture clash here?
There are obviously other issues—from extra-biblical theology to extreme manifestations to teachings on angels—that have turned the Lakeland Outpouring into such a divisive move. But I believe underneath these fundamental yet surface issues lies a cultural war that is apparent not just every night at the “revival tent” in Lakeland, but also in Spirit-filled churches across our nation. God is looking to promote His kingdom culture, and we keep diluting it with ours.
What’s exciting is that we are all in this together. Ché Ahn, who helped preside over Bentley’s commissioning, spoke the following night in Bentley’s absence and at times gave a beautiful example of what great leadership can look like in these messy times. At the point where most well-known ministers would begin to inadvertently “hog the mic” as they lay hands on the sick and keep all eyes on them, Ahn followed what I believe is God’s underlying desire: letting the saints do His business. Not an elite few or just those who have obvious giftings, mind you. “This is the day of the saints,” Ahn said as he led almost 10,000 “average Joes” to lay hands on the sick among them and pray for each other. “This is something for all of us to do. … Not all of us have the gift of healing, but all of us have the responsibility or the role to heal the sick. … We all carry the anointing!”
I refuse to be an armchair quarterback of what’s going on at Lakeland, or of any of the leaders involved, for that matter. I am just as at fault for creating this culture as the next person—and that includes the honorable and gifted “names” that I’m targeting here. Again, we all want the same thing. We all want to see God changing lives, communities, cities, nations. We want to see the day when the “glory of God fills the whole earth” (Num. 14:20).
But like the Israelites wandering in Sinai, we can either make another trip around the mountain, or we can change and enter into the promised land of true revival. We can learn from past mistakes and fizzled revivals and be truly saturated with the Holy Spirit, or we can remain a diluted mixture of flesh and spirit. We can continue to shine the spotlight (even unintentionally) on ourselves, or we can truly follow Jesus’ example and become servant leaders who have no problem stepping aside as the Lord walks into the room. It’s God’s culture or our own.
Monday night’s apostolic commissioning of evangelist Todd Bentley began with the ceremony’s organizer, Peter Wagner, calling it “an event [that] could well have historic implications not only for the Lakeland Outpouring, but also for our nation and for many other nations of the world.” Those opening remarks set the stage for what simultaneously became an admirable display of ministerial government and a nauseating example of what’s wrong with our movement today.
One minute we were being reminded—as has been the case throughout the Outpouring—that this was all about God’s glory, that it had little to do with Todd Bentley. The next, Bentley was announcing to GOD TV viewers and those among the crowd of 10,000 what cities Todd Bentley would be visiting and what stadiums Todd Bentley would be filling in the months to come. One moment the emphasis was being placed on how revival fires would spread through average, uncommissioned Joes; the next moment, we were presumptuously instructed to “hold our applause until the end” of Wagner’s roll call of the big names in attendance.
I, like most people, am all for God showing up through unconventional means. I love it when He surprises some of us and offends the rest by using the underdogs, the oft-forgottens, the unimpressive and the downright weird among us. It comes as no surprise to me that God might use a sold-out, tattooed, pierced 30-something to stir hunger among His people. And above all the distractions, criticism and controversy surrounding the Lakeland Outpouring, this is clear: God’s people are hungry. Starving, to be exact. We are all—leaders included—desperate for God’s glory to change this earth and bring His kingdom. That, along with such elements as repentance and holiness, lays the foundation for true revival.
But I wonder how firm our foundation currently is given the celebrity-centric ministry culture we’ve created. We cry out for a move of God that’s pronounced through nameless, faceless people, yet we’re all too often reminded of who’s sitting on stage, who’s in the building, who’s holding the microphone, who’s attending what conference, who’s leading worship, who’s prophesying at the church across town …
Is anyone else seeing a culture clash here?
There are obviously other issues—from extra-biblical theology to extreme manifestations to teachings on angels—that have turned the Lakeland Outpouring into such a divisive move. But I believe underneath these fundamental yet surface issues lies a cultural war that is apparent not just every night at the “revival tent” in Lakeland, but also in Spirit-filled churches across our nation. God is looking to promote His kingdom culture, and we keep diluting it with ours.
What’s exciting is that we are all in this together. Ché Ahn, who helped preside over Bentley’s commissioning, spoke the following night in Bentley’s absence and at times gave a beautiful example of what great leadership can look like in these messy times. At the point where most well-known ministers would begin to inadvertently “hog the mic” as they lay hands on the sick and keep all eyes on them, Ahn followed what I believe is God’s underlying desire: letting the saints do His business. Not an elite few or just those who have obvious giftings, mind you. “This is the day of the saints,” Ahn said as he led almost 10,000 “average Joes” to lay hands on the sick among them and pray for each other. “This is something for all of us to do. … Not all of us have the gift of healing, but all of us have the responsibility or the role to heal the sick. … We all carry the anointing!”
I refuse to be an armchair quarterback of what’s going on at Lakeland, or of any of the leaders involved, for that matter. I am just as at fault for creating this culture as the next person—and that includes the honorable and gifted “names” that I’m targeting here. Again, we all want the same thing. We all want to see God changing lives, communities, cities, nations. We want to see the day when the “glory of God fills the whole earth” (Num. 14:20).
But like the Israelites wandering in Sinai, we can either make another trip around the mountain, or we can change and enter into the promised land of true revival. We can learn from past mistakes and fizzled revivals and be truly saturated with the Holy Spirit, or we can remain a diluted mixture of flesh and spirit. We can continue to shine the spotlight (even unintentionally) on ourselves, or we can truly follow Jesus’ example and become servant leaders who have no problem stepping aside as the Lord walks into the room. It’s God’s culture or our own.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Please Stay With Me to the End of This Sentence
The latest issue of Atlantic Monthly includes a fascinating article that asks, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Beyond just covering the changes since the "information highway" entered our everyday existence, writer Nicholas Carr wonders what affect the Internet is having on our brains—more specifically, how we read and process information. Some highlights from Carr's piece:
Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
... And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
I highly recommend that you spend a few minutes reading the article. It's not stuffy or overly techy, but is a must-read for anyone who deals with people in this twittering, texting, terabytes-per-second-consuming wiki-culture. (Yep, that means everyone.) The ironic thing, however, is that if you're like me, you probably won't read every word of it. You'll glean through paragraphs, taking only the most outstanding info that catches your eye. And that, folks, is exactly the point.
Reading has changed. Media and our interaction with it have changed. But more importantly, our entire approach to communication has changed. And as a pastor, that affects absolutely everything you do in your approach to people. Yes, the gospel remains the same. The principles of God haven't changed. But just as Christ spoke to both His disciples and the masses using stories, analogies and language of the day, we must communicate with the same timeliness, the same relevant connective tissue. I'm not talking about technology, though that's a major part of it. What I'm referring to is having at least an awareness of the light-speed pace at which people interact with you now and "consume" your message—both spoken and unspoken. Once you get that part down, you'll notice a difference in how you craft a sermon, make announcements, counsel a couple, or even how you have a simple conversation with the Starbucks girl who makes your coffee each morning.
Reading has changed. Media and our interaction with it have changed. But more importantly, our entire approach to communication has changed. And as a pastor, that affects absolutely everything you do in your approach to people. Yes, the gospel remains the same. The principles of God haven't changed. But just as Christ spoke to both His disciples and the masses using stories, analogies and language of the day, we must communicate with the same timeliness, the same relevant connective tissue. I'm not talking about technology, though that's a major part of it. What I'm referring to is having at least an awareness of the light-speed pace at which people interact with you now and "consume" your message—both spoken and unspoken. Once you get that part down, you'll notice a difference in how you craft a sermon, make announcements, counsel a couple, or even how you have a simple conversation with the Starbucks girl who makes your coffee each morning.
When it comes to communication, it's a different world. So how has this affected you?
Friday, June 06, 2008
Seeking to Blame
The latest from the story that won't die ...
Last August, after assessing the results of an extensive survey of his church, Willow Creek Community Church's Bill Hybels uttered a four-word sentence—"We made a mistake"—that spawned a host of blog posts and news stories, along with a case of rampant "I told you so"-itis. Though Hybels went on to candidly explain Willow's struggles with producing true disciples rather than mere churchgoers (which the survey's results proved), the miscorrelation had already begun: Seeker-sensitive doesn't work! Christianity Today seemed to lead the charge with a blog post in October titled "Willow Creek Repents?" and a follow-up article in May about all the changes the church was supposedly making is response.
I'm not exactly sure why it's taken this long, but Willow finally posted a direct response from Hybels on its Web site today. In the posted video of a Q&A session with Willow Creek Association president Jim Mellado, Hybels called CT's latest story "an unfortunate article that was written without a proper understanding of what we're actually doing these days." And in a loaded response to the blog, he added, "I don't think when you make a strategic adjustment it qualifies under the term 'repent.' I think every evangelical knows that's kind of a loaded-up term, and I think someone wanted to get some action on a blog."
Not too long ago I blogged (also candidly, I might add) about my lack of a definitive opinion on the "seeker-sensitive vs. traditional" debate. Part of our problem, I believe, is that it's not a simple methodology question. Obviously, seeker-sensitive churches aren't in the wrong for reaching out to, as Hybels calls them in the video, the "irreligious" crowd. Any attack on that intent is absurd. Just as absurd, however, is dismissing the assessment that maybe we're not fully allowing the Holy Spirit to move when we program every worship service to be yet another "sit back and enjoy" spiritual ride.
I don't know. I really don't. I'm glad Hybels and Willow Creek are trying to set the record straight, but what might be the bigger issue here is why so many of us seem to want this ministry approach to be proven faulty. I've heard the arguments that a watered-down gospel is no gospel at all. True. But if we're all in the same boat, if we all wake up each morning needing the same daily dosage of God's mercy and grace to cover our failures, that means none of us is the definitive expert on ministry and what it means to fulfill the Great Commission. It means (without stating this too simplistically or couched in excessive naiveté) that we're all trying our best to share the good news of Jesus. So although many of us have a problem with seeker-sensitive worship services being more tightly scripted than some Oscar-winning screenplays, I wonder if by pointing that out we're not harboring a "they've missed the boat" attitude and thus exposing our own—now what did Hybels call it?—mistake.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
A Falling Nation and a Rising Revival
I've spent enough time working in the newsroom of a local newspaper to know it isn't my cup of tea. Apparently, those are words journalists are never supposed to utter, but hey, I'm just being honest. It didn't take long to figure out what the newsroom environment does to most people. While searching under every rock for the truth, writers morph into cynics as the world and its harsh sadness eats away at every sense and sensibility. Whatever survives is calloused, be it relationships, dreams, perspectives, etc.
I'm hoping that's not the case for veteran journalist Christine Wicker, who recently released her latest book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church. A title like that normally wouldn't catch my eye since we've been blitzed by so much evangelicalspeak in recent years. Do we really need another person's take on the rise or fall of evangelicalism, what it means or doesn't mean to this year's presidential election, whether there's a changing of the guard or not—yada yada yada?
Yet Wicker and her latest project piqued my interest mainly because a severely condensed version of her take on evangelicalism's decline showed up in the op-ed section of Sunday's Dallas Morning News. More precisely, she has me interested because of how much her words ruffled me. I'm not easily offended, yet almost every paragraph of her article sparked a response in me—from anger to agreement. Now that's good writing.
Some quotes from Wicker's piece:
Wicker comes from Southern Baptist roots, which I mention simply because it indicates to me that she knows exactly what she's doing. She's been immersed in the language and knows she's riling up a major segment of her readers. And yes, I believe her view is extremely skewed toward the Baptist world (again, she's smart enough to consider her Dallas-area audience). But through all her caustic language, I find it strange that her landing point is a question of revival.
We are in odd times, aren't we? And what I love is that God can speak through anyone, anytime, to remind us that He does not nor will not abandon His church. Thankfully, that church isn't the evangelical movement, nor is it the declining denominations. Talk about the declining church is cheap nowadays. According to every expert and analyst, we're becoming ineffective, powerless, scattered, divided, hypocritical and small.
Hogwash. The church is approaching what could be her finest hour. Whenever darkness grows thicker, light doesn't become irrelevant—it becomes brighter. A single pure flame lights up an entire room; think of what thousands or even millions can do. Even if there is only a remnant of "pure" lights left in this falling nation, that's still enough to rest on the assurance that God's people—His church—we are alive and well. Do we need revival? Of course. Does our nation need a radical spirit revolution that reforms our culture? You bet. Yet thankfully, every revival and reformation starts with a single spark. Call me an optimist, but I believe more than a single spark exists today. I believe we have more than just a hope; we have a future, just as God has said.
I'm hoping that's not the case for veteran journalist Christine Wicker, who recently released her latest book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church. A title like that normally wouldn't catch my eye since we've been blitzed by so much evangelicalspeak in recent years. Do we really need another person's take on the rise or fall of evangelicalism, what it means or doesn't mean to this year's presidential election, whether there's a changing of the guard or not—yada yada yada?
Yet Wicker and her latest project piqued my interest mainly because a severely condensed version of her take on evangelicalism's decline showed up in the op-ed section of Sunday's Dallas Morning News. More precisely, she has me interested because of how much her words ruffled me. I'm not easily offended, yet almost every paragraph of her article sparked a response in me—from anger to agreement. Now that's good writing.
Some quotes from Wicker's piece:
The idea that only one little part of one kind of religion has the only way to God has begun to seem more and more unlikely. It has begun to seem rude. Un-Christian, even. And evangelicals, who don't like being boorish any more than anyone else, have become less and less willing to relegate their neighbors to hell. So we have a completely formless god of great power and instant accessibility romping around, rescuing millions whom everyone else had given up on. Then we have more Christians getting squeamish about proclaiming hegemony over heaven.
Evangelical leaders defend their stance by claiming that God doesn't change and that neither does sin. But sin does change. Slavery wasn't sin once. Now it is. Taking a wife and a concubine wasn't sin once. Now it is. And God—or our understanding of what God is, which is all we actually have—changes, too. When societies change, their interpretations of God change. Their readings of the Scripture shift. Human understandings are remolded so that faith can remain vital and effective during new times.
Whether evangelical intransigence is pleasing to God isn't anything that humans can ever be absolutely sure of. If it is pleasing to him, God may send a great revival that will sweep the country and restore them to their place of predominance. Such revivals have happened before. They could happen again.
Wicker comes from Southern Baptist roots, which I mention simply because it indicates to me that she knows exactly what she's doing. She's been immersed in the language and knows she's riling up a major segment of her readers. And yes, I believe her view is extremely skewed toward the Baptist world (again, she's smart enough to consider her Dallas-area audience). But through all her caustic language, I find it strange that her landing point is a question of revival.
We are in odd times, aren't we? And what I love is that God can speak through anyone, anytime, to remind us that He does not nor will not abandon His church. Thankfully, that church isn't the evangelical movement, nor is it the declining denominations. Talk about the declining church is cheap nowadays. According to every expert and analyst, we're becoming ineffective, powerless, scattered, divided, hypocritical and small.
Hogwash. The church is approaching what could be her finest hour. Whenever darkness grows thicker, light doesn't become irrelevant—it becomes brighter. A single pure flame lights up an entire room; think of what thousands or even millions can do. Even if there is only a remnant of "pure" lights left in this falling nation, that's still enough to rest on the assurance that God's people—His church—we are alive and well. Do we need revival? Of course. Does our nation need a radical spirit revolution that reforms our culture? You bet. Yet thankfully, every revival and reformation starts with a single spark. Call me an optimist, but I believe more than a single spark exists today. I believe we have more than just a hope; we have a future, just as God has said.
