what do I look for in a church planter?

Friday 30 March 2007 at 8:29 pm

• Humility
• Ballast
• Courage

the offensive questions

Friday 23 March 2007 at 09:00 am

When Mouw in his interview named NAMBLA and polygamy I winced. I winced because it made me wonder how much he had really discussed this in a diverse forum. I again have to say that Paul and GPeter and others have been an immense benefit to me by being tutors for me on this important subject. They have done so at real cost to themselves and I am in their debt.

(Note to the blog reader. This too is a CRC Voices posting I made and the characters mentioned, GPeter and Paul are from that forum.)

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for all people

Thursday 22 March 2007 at 7:45 pm

Somewhere along the line both Christians and non-Christians got the idea that Christianity was a good thing for Christians and a bad thing for everyone else. This isn’t true. The original meaning of the word "gospel" was "good news" and it still is.

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Seeking the wholeness of the city

Thursday 22 March 2007 at 7:44 pm What do I mean by “wholeness”? Nearly everyone will agree that this world is not as it should be. I don’t need to make a list. Christians accept this as a fact yet also believe that this is not the way things were supposed to be. I will often refer to the condition of this world as being “broken”. “Whole” is the opposite of broken. more...

The "gay agenda" represents an ironic triumph of Christianity

Tuesday 20 March 2007 at 7:25 pm I know most don't see it that way, but this "issue" really in some ways represents a triumph for Christianity and the changes that Jesus Christ has brought to history. Tim Keller in his sermon The Kiss of Death ($2.50 download) refers to a John Sommerville story to illustrate how Jesus has changed the world. Sommerville taught in Florida, has an interesting book on Amazon. I don't know what book Keller finds this story in. Basically Sommerville did a thought experient with his secular students. He noted that they were often very grumpy about Christianity but had no idea how much Christianity impacted the world that they embrace even against Christianity. He notes that the pre-Christians European tribes had a value system based on honor. The monks who converted them had a value system based on charity, wanting the best for others. These were two different value systems. Imagine seeing a little old lady on the street with a large purse looking very vulnerable. Imagine it occurs to you how easy it would be to snatch that purse. What would you do? Of course everyone says "I wouldn't take the purse." OK, why not? Two different answers. The honor/shame culture is "you don't do it because that would make you a bad person, preying on the weak like that. There is no glory in preying on the weak. Picking on the weak does not display strength." That approach is self-regarding. You're thinking entirely about your honor, your glory, your reputation. You can practice self-restraint and delayed gratification for your own honor and glory. The charity value culture imagines how hard it would be to be that little old lady and her dependents who would be harmed by your theft of her money. You place yourself in her little old shoes and you don't do it based on how it would be for her to experience. That is an other regarding ethic. You want the best for her. So when he asks the class why they wouldn't do it they appeal to the second culture, the charity culture. Then he springs the trap and tells them that the origin of that culture, the other regarding culture, playing the other ahead of your self comes from Christianity. more...

Tim Keller Sermon Outline: Witness (Vision Series)

Monday 19 March 2007 at 7:28 pm

Witness: While He May Be Found: Isaiah 55:1-7, 57:14-21: (Tim Keller: Redeemer Vision series)

 

1.   Introduction: Personal Conversion, makes people nervous. “We convert people”

      a.   Other’s complain that converting people is intolerant. Don’t insist that you’re way of believing is any better than any other. Campus minister example. “Lend an open ear to those discovering themselves spiritually” New Yorkers like this kind of talk.

      b.   If you believe what New Yorkers assert, then you’ve already been converted to expressive individualism and you’re trying to convert others to it or you wouldn’t have complained about Redeemer seeking personal conversion.

      c.   To be converted by a non-innate comprehensive view of reality and to seek to convert others to it is unavoidable.

      d.   What the text tells us about mission

             i.    God calls his people into mission

             ii.   He gives them a message for that mission

             iii.  He gives them a motivation and power for it.

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the homosexual debate

Monday 19 March 2007 at 11:08 am As I listen to the debate, and I think debating it is a good and healthy thing (I am deeply appreciative to Paul, GPeter, Jan and Ginger who hang in here with us taking a minority position, it is not easy to do emotionally and they do so for our grace) I step back and ask myself, what exactly are we trying to answer?

Perhaps we are struggling to refine what the church should say and how it should speak about homosexuality today. That is a worthy project. Carefully studying texts and how they apply to us is an important part of that effort both in terms of clarity and complexity.

It is also a valid discussion to debate how society should be structures so that society is healthy and helps people experience shalom in this broken world to the degree that society can enable them. That's a worthwhile discussion too.


At the same time part of what I'm hearing coming through is a certain biblicism which I think threatens to become unChristian. A Christian is not one who comes to the Bible as a book of rules by which he/she figures out what they must do and not do in order to go to heaven and avoid hell. That's not the gospel. A Christian is one who returns to the Bible and asks, "How can I please God by my life, motivated by joy and gratitude?" That changes everything. It's the difference between someone coming to my church and saying "I want to join your church. How much money do I have to give a year in order to be what level of member: a regular member, a pillar, a saint?" In the light of the gospel the question makes no sense. A Christian comes and asks him/herself, "How much can I give because the more I give the more joy it is for me."

I hear a lot of (and am guilty of some of it too) trying to bind others with the Bible. There is a place within Christian community by which we speak honestly and clearly about such things, but it is always within a rigorous context and it tends to be "pull" (I'm asking you to help me with this) rather than "push" (I've been watching you and I have a number of things I want to change about you and your conduct.)

I would imagine a more ideal Christian searching out of this subject might look something like this:

from the right: "I can see that this has been an enormously difficult, painful, and damaging issue and I think I/we have not done very well with this. How can we stop being part of the problem and bring more healing..."

from the left: "We're seeing things very differently from you folks over on the right. I hope we haven't fallen from the way. I'd love to hear what you have to say."

Why can't we talk like this? Because we don't trust each other very well.

I have more thoughts. They will come in time. pvk

Musings on homosexuality and "normal"

Thursday 15 March 2007 at 6:13 pm

Part of what makes the homosexuality debate so difficult is that there are a variety of moving pieces to it all within the mystery of human sexuality. Tracking and flagging some of the positions and developments is interesting. Please correct anything I have wrong here. I am not expert and I know some of you are more knowledgeable in this matter than I am.

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Mohler in the middle

Thursday 15 March 2007 at 11:00 am

Mohler's blog entry on homosexuality that drew attention: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=891

The slate article that prompted him: http://www.slate.com/id/2158877/

Proselytizing

Tuesday 13 March 2007 at 8:40 pm

This was a response to a posting on Calvin-in-Common an Internet listserve. I wanted to keep a copy of it. There are some Keller ideas and illustrations that I used.

On what basis do you disdain the author of the "Proclaim" piece? He/she declares the muslim lost. OK, but don't you declare the author of the piece to have lost their way too?

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Tim Keller Sermon Outline: Community, Vision Series

Monday 12 March 2007 at 7:32 pm

Tim Keller Sermon Notes: Community: Vision Series: Isaiah 56:1-8

 

1.   Intro: Why is it so important to form community?

      a.   The importance of community

      b.   The patterns of life inside that community

      c.   The power to create that community

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Tim Keller's Resurgence Lecture: Preaching the Gospel

Thursday 08 March 2007 at 6:46 pm

These notes aren't necessarily very tight to the lecture. I wrote them for a council training series I was using these lectures for. I did some editing and summarizing. 

Preaching the Gospel: Tim Keller Resurgence Lecture

 

1.   The gospel is that God himself has come to rescue and renew creation through the work and in the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

      a.   There is a trajectory of salvation and a means:

            i.   The purpose of salvation is a renewed material creation.

            ii.  The means of salvation is sheer grace not by works.

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Tim Keller Sermon Outline: The City, Vision Series

Wednesday 07 March 2007 at 6:34 pm

Tim Keller Sermon Outline: The City (Vision Series) Isaiah 25-26

 

1.   Outline:

      a.   The importance city

      b.   The two cities

      c.   The final city

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Shines the light on our faces

Monday 05 March 2007 at 09:41 am

Peter Kreeft in his lecture on CS Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" illuminates the question in the book "Why are holy places dark places?" It is of course the question of why is God hidden, why does he hide is face? The question agonizes not just that we can't see him, but why can't we know why we can't see him. Frustration can be endured if the reason for the withholding is articulated and embraced. In the lecture he refers to Job and notes that when God does come out of the darkness he doesn't shine a light on his own face, the thing that he is withholding from us, the thing that he is frustrating us by, but he rather shines the light on Job's face. The reasons we can't answer the question, the reason we can't see the face of God is because of our own faces.

This illuminates the cross and the way of the cross. The reasons we don't practice the way of the cross, the reason we don't believe what Jesus says is because we don't believe it "works". The reason we say it doesn't work is because we see the horror of the faces of others and have determined that violence and exclusion are the only practical remedy their grotesque deformity. The irony, of course, is that our opponent sees us in exactly the same light. What does the way of the cross do? What does the free embrace of self-donation reveal? What does the willful embrace to bear the burden of the other, to substitute oneself into the place of pain and victim on behalf of the enemy disclose? It can hold a mirror up for the other, it can shine the light on the face of the other and perhaps allow them to glimpse their own horror. One cannot be healed of the disease until one first knows the disease and accepts the diagnosis.

Lost in the Cosmos

Friday 02 March 2007 at 09:30 am

Like I said I've been listening to the audio on http://www.peterkreeft.com and found some very nice lectures. One that I think is particularly helpful to preachers is one where he compares Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos and CS Lewis' The Abolition of Man. He does some nice work on direct vs. indirect communication (of the gospel) and uses some Kierkegaard. Fun stuff. pvk

And PS. And just for my father's sake,  in that lecture there is a theological/philosophical praise/defense for the pun. My mother will plead with me not to encourage him because she is held captive to his puns by the covenant of marriage. She is to be pitied. :) pvk

Of God, the universe and spandrels

Friday 02 March 2007 at 09:17 am

A nice piece linked to in Voices from the NY Times:

I've been listening to Peter Kreeft lately. Some of his free download audio lectures on that website (www.peterkreeft.com) are really quite good.

The presumed position of one to declare something a spandrel presumes to be able to mind read the designer.
If there is no God then the universe itself is a spandrel.
If there is a God and we cannot presume to know his mind then we are unable to designate anything a spandrel and anything not a spandrel. Simply judging from what we observe it would be reasonable to presume that God has a preferential option for roaches because he made them so tough, so diverse and so plentiful.

Only the architect and one who knows him/her can really identify a spandrel. My prime example is the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/ . One might presume that this strange, huge place it itself composed primarily out of spandrel but it is not. The staircases and doors to no where pursue the design of their author, a mad, haunted woman.

What this article seems to display once more is that despite all of our professions of modern epistemological humility we simply can't help ourselves, we presume that we can deduce the final cause (purpose/end) of the universe strictly on the basis of the universe itself. The assertion is ultimately double minded and deceitful. On one hand it declares "you can't know that you can't know that" but presumes to know it by hovering over the universe and passing judgment on it while it declares that this exercise can't be done. If the exercise can't be done then they should be quiet. They are presuming a knowledge they say no one can have. It is basically the same move pointed to by Leslie Newbigin with his critique of the blind men and elephant analogy. If evolutionary processes really simply account for and therefore assertedly dispels such knowledge than it must dispel this assertion as well. If final causes are unknowable to us because they are unverifiable then this whole article must also be an example of it.

Perhaps the reason we can't help but wander into thinking, talking and wrestling with final causes despite our public convention that such behavior is unsuitable for public consumption is because these discussions are really the only ones interesting enough to be worth seriously pursuing. As Augustine noted, we are addicts for God. Our sorrow is that we are also in terrible denial and often not on speaking terms with the divine.

New boss, same as the old boss

Thursday 01 March 2007 at 8:50 pm

Once the link between violence and social status has been established, victims are prompted to seek redress for their oppression with violent means. The social impact of envy and enmity, singly and in combination, is to reinforce the dominant values and practices that cause and perpetuate oppression in the first place. Envy and enmity keep the dispriviledged and weak chained to the dominant order –even when they succeed in toppling it! All too often, of course, they do not want to topple the dominant order; Bauman says; they “demand the reshuffling of cards, not another game. They do not blame the game, only the stronger hand of the adversary”

Exclusion and Embrace p. 116. Miroslav Volf

The Submergent Church

Thursday 01 March 2007 at 6:32 pm

The Sign of Jonah

Thursday 01 March 2007 at 6:00 pm

In his sermon Christ's Confession Tim Keller references a play that was performed in Germany after WWII called "The Sign of Jonah". In it God stands on trial for the crimes of Germany during the war. I did a bit of Googling on the subject to find that it was a play written by a man named Guenter Rutenborn. There is a reference to it in a couple of places on the web plus a book written by him and translated into English. The book might be the play. I've ordered it to find out. It looks like powerful stuff. Anyway, here are two links I've found:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,867662,00.html

http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/1979/04/05/a/