smokeygecko Thoughts

Here’s a video from Os Guinness on the state of the Christian Church in the West. (YouTube)

Found at A Better Hope

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“It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness.”

R. C. Sproul writing on the Dark Night of the Soul.

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On Sunday morning, or whenever you corporately meet, take a second to glance around and conduct a quick demographic survey. If your church is like mine there’ll be a fairly healthy smattering of kids, married couples and older folk but there could well be a gap in 20-30 single somethings, and an even bigger gap where the guys should be.

You could dismiss this by saying something like, “Young people grow up and then move away for university” – but does this answer the question? If you’re in a town or city then surely there will be people moving in to the city replacing those who are moving out.

I think it’s time to own the fact that by and large many churches struggle with retaining young men and women when they enter their twenties. Rather than simply explaining away this phenomenon I think it’s pertinent that we work out how we’re losing these people and how we’re going to get them back.

Being a man isn’t a problem, it’s the solution

The church was started by a man in his thirties with a bunch of his mates. They all had jobs and some had families. After 3 or so years of training Jesus (the guy who started the church) left eleven guys to get on with it. Of these eleven, ten were martyred for their beliefs. The love that these men had for Jesus led them to give everything they had for the church. This is the calibre of man that Jesus picked to lead the church. 2,000 years later and the job spec hasn’t changed, but perhaps the candidates have.

To succeed as a man in life you need to show some determination. To father and lead a family, hold down a job, provide a future and encourage men around you takes grit and courage. Through all of this a man’s character is shown and every aspect of his god-given manhood is used. My question is, do we encourage any of this in church or not?

Let me explain what I mean.

I wonder if you know of this man? He’s competitive, and likes sports. He’s stubborn and doesn’t like to admit he’s wrong. He wants to be right and win the argument, oh, and he wants to have lots of great sex.

Stereotype? Maybe. But here we have him. Now, let’s look at how some churches may see him. He’ll be branded as: strong and not meek/mild, proud and not soft-hearted, arrogant and divisive, and lustful and degrading to women. He’ll know sooner rather than later that he’s just sinful and all he desires are wrong. He’ll either have to neuter himself or leave the church. Not once will he be encouraged in who he is.

However, I don’t think this is how Jesus sees him. Sure, he might be misusing his passions – but our God is a redeemer, not a large ant-testosterone pill. Instead of pre-condemning the up-and-coming men in the church we should celebrate them and encourage them. Let’s look at them the way that a loving father who wants the best will look at them.

This guy I mentioned could be viewed this way. He is competitive; he’s not satisfied till he gives his best. He’s stubborn; he’ll fight for his faith. He regards truth highly and wont settle for anything less. Oh, his healthy sex-drive is a great ingredient for a healthy marriage, which is the core of a healthy family.

If we decide that we don’t need to defend truth, or work hard for our Lord and Saviour, and that easy compromise is preferable and healthy families don’t rate that highly then sure, we don’t need young men in the church. We can condemn all manly desires as sinful and not welcome and we can effectively skim off the boys as they reach manhood.

But if we wake up and realise that we value God’s truth and that it is under attack, that compromise is as disgusting as it is rife and that the family model is so far off from God’s plan, then maybe we’ll think about making at an effort to keep our boys instead of repelling them and take the effort train them to become the men God is calling them to be.

If we lose the young men, we lose the church. Game over. But if we give the guys a glimpse of how God sees them and how He wants to use them, then watch their natural talents come into play as they grab hold of life and pour their lives out for the church in love for their leader, Jesus.

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Bible Study Magazine, from Logos, has an interesting article in this month’s edition, where, “Jeff Struecker recounts how studying the Bible helped him during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, which was portrayed in the book and movie Black Hawk Down, as well as during his career as an Army Ranger and chaplain.”

You can read the full article (pdf) here.

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Joel Virgo has blogged about getting men to pray at church.

In what I think is an excellent post Joel makes the claim that we need to, “Intentionally gather guys to seek God. They will rise to it, and the church will follow.”

It’s not about creating a male-dominated environment but creating an environment that allows men to become the men that God called them to be.

Anyway, I don’t need to write more as Joel did an excellent job.

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Here are my extended notes from my talk at Bath City Church on Sunday 14th June.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armour of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” (NASB)

Chapter 6 of Ephesians concludes the book. The introductory word “finally” leads us into a section that sums up and concludes the epistle.

• Ephesians 1-3 are what D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones calls the ‘fundamental postulates’, how to become a Christian etc.
• Ephesians 4-5 tells us how to live, including a plea to “live in a manner worthy of your calling. (Eph. 4:1)”
• Ephesians 6 tells us that there is a very real adversary and calls  us to action.

The illustration of the text is that we’re in a war. So what are we going to stand and fight for?

Now an interesting point here, is that the language used further on in chapter 6 is descriptive of OT Israelite warfare, first and foremost and this would have been the image in Paul’s mind rather than a Roman soldier. There are many similarities between the two soldiers of course, but Paul consistently uses OT themes to show how God planned salvation from the very beginning. Paul was keenly aware of the overall message of Scripture and carried this in in his writings. We’ll see a corresponding link to an image presented to us in Isaiah later on.

With a topic such as this one, it’s very easy to use emotive language to get a response. I could think of pictures of great military victories such as Trafalgar, Battle of Britatin or the yomp to Port Stanley. It’s fairly easy with a subject such as warfare to create an emotional response but we’re hungering for what God would say to us through His Word.

Taking Apart the Scripture

v.10 be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might – Paul lays out the idea that ‘we can’t’ but ‘God can’. It’s not our strength that makes us warriors. In fact, there’s no power that we possess that enables us to fight against the enemy. Indeed, before we were Christians we were in fact on the same side as Satan (Rom. 5:10). It is only, and totally, in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can display strength.

v.11 & v.13 “stand firm” – The power of the Holy Spirit allows to stand firm. To hold the line. We stand on the immovable foundation of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11) and from it we cannot be shaken.

v.11 “schemes of the devil” – The enemy is a scheming, plotting enemy. He is cunning and he plans and plots destruction. We should not be fooled into thinking that our adversary is weak, powerless, and easily defeated. Remember, it’s only in Christ’s strength that we have victory. We used to participate ourselves in these evil schemes, but no more. We stand firm against them. (See Isaiah 32:7 and Ephesians 4:14).

v.12 “rulers … powers … world forces” – See 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. One key principle of the spiritual warfare that we are involved in is that we are fighting against the lie. There are “arguments” and “lofty opinions” that oppose God. Do we allow these lies to flourish or do we take action by proclaiming the truth. It’s a two-fold attack: 1) against the lies directly, in response 2) proclaiming Jesus frequently, loudly, repeatedly. Jesus is King, Jesus is victorious, Jesus is the answer – to everything, all of the time!

v.12 “this darkness” & v.13 “the evil day” – The darkness is real and days we live in are evil. Sin is the curse of the fall and affects the whole world. Wherever there are people there is sin and evil abounds. The Bible tells us that we are in a wicked time (Eph. 5:16).

v.13 “Therefore take up the full armour of God” – Paul’s use of repition, within just a couple of verses, emphasises to us the importance of what he is saying. This is serious stuff my friends!

Fighting Boldly

Now we know that there is the truth, and there is the lie. The lie first came into the world at the fall (Gen. 3) through the sin of Adam and Eve and has affected every part of Creation, and every man (Ps. 14:3). The attacks of the enemy come at us from many different angles, both within the church and outside of it. The question that we must ask ourselves is, “Am I defending truth on all fronts?” The lie will come in many different ways, at different times in history, and in different guises. We must be fighting where the attack is now. Martin Luther says it this way:

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” Martin Luther quoted by Francis Schaeffer in ‘The God Who Is There‘

We should be asking ourselves where the battle is raging. Where is the attack on truth? Where is the enemy spreading his lie right now?

Part II will be published Monday 15th June …

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Re:Sound have released their first album, Rain City Hymnal. It’s, as they say, “a fresh approach to 12 ancient hymns,” and you can download it now. There’s an option, for a short time, to either pay a donation of your choice, or tell 5 people to get it for free.

I have already downloaded Re:Sounds sampler that was released several days ago and I thoroughly enjoyed that. I’m looking forward to hearing more theologically sound worship come from this stable.

As well as download the music, there are chord sheets if desired.

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This week I shall be hopping on the train from Tuesday to Friday to head to Bridgend, to the Wales Evangelical School of Theology (WEST). WEST are in the middle of their Summer Season and this week I have the immense privilege of sitting in on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s ‘Doctrine of Scripture’ week. This is what WEST has to say on the week:

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is a core text in numerous seminaries around the world. This week presents a rare opportunity to hear the much esteemed Professor of Bible and Research at Phoenix Seminary reassert and defend the absolute integrity of the Bible in the light of current threats and misunderstandings.

I believe that this week is going to be really useful to me. In my time with the YWAM in Maui, I learnt much on the need to rigorously defend the integrity of the Bible. More than this, we need to be postively asserting the truth of God’s word. We cannot keep quiet on this matter for their are many voices shouting their anti-truth objections, from within as well as outside of the church.

It is also perhaps an interesting week that leads me up to next Sunday when I have a sermon entitled, ‘The Church as an Army.” Armies are trained to fight, and to fight objectively. What will the church in the UK fight for? Will perhaps part of it’s objectives be the defense of the inerrancy, infalliabilty, and ultimate authority of the Bible. Do we realise that if we lose Scripture, we lose Jesus and are left leaderless, hopeless and utterly lost?

I look forward to learning much from Dr. Grudem and posting some of what I have learned here.

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Re:Sound, a new worship label from The Resurgence, has their website up and running. And what’s more, right now you can download their free 8 track sampler, with some familiar and some new songs.

The sampler has got me excited for the launch of the albums, which I’ll be looking to purchase and share soon enough. So if you’re into theologically rich worship (and if not, why not?!) and have a taste for some alternative musical styles, go take a look.

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“This saying is carted out whenever someone wants to suggest that Christians talk about the gospel too much, and live the gospel too little. Fair enough—that can be a problem. Much of the rhetorical power of the quotation comes from the assumption that Francis not only said it but lived it.

The problem is that he did not say it. Nor did he live it. And those two contra-facts tell us something about the spirit of our age.”

Mark Galli with some very interesting thoughts, on Christianity Today.

I’ve run into this very quote and situation numerous times, each time the implication being that we need to be ‘actionally active’ and ‘verbally passive’, or something like that. It’s as if we read the book of Acts and ignore the great sermons (which to me seem to be the thrust of much of the book) and say that actually we just need to keep quiet and get on with it.

Of course, this isn’t true; the gospel needs to be preached verbally and through the effective preaching of the Word the Holy Spirit regenerates hearts to serve Him well too, providing another effective witness.

But our culture has for much part lost the value of words, and so little mantras like the one above (for it really is like a religious chant) slip in, sound cool, but if left unchecked can be quite dangerous, especially to a young Christian mind.

So let us continue in the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2) so we might use wisdom and discernment in dealing with the bombardment of ideas jumping our way, that we might sift out truth and discard error.

We’re in a shooting war and we can’t afford to put down the rifles that God has given us to advance his Kingdom. The preaching of the Word by the Holy Spirit is powerful, life-changing and glorious. He has promised the power of it to us (Isa. 55:11) and we have witnessed it ourselves. We must not get muddled and confused where God has spoken plain and clearly.

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