How Do You Fit In?

A woman's leadership ministry is not where you would expect to find me. I am not a woman (nor have I ever played one on TV). But I have been privileged through the world of social media to meet some of the women starting a new ministry, LeadHer, and I am hoping to support them as I can. We are  hopeful at the ministry I work at, EvanTell, to be able to provide really good evangelism training and teaching materials. To come alongside these women in ministry to partner and provide their evangelism training needs. That is what we do, that is what we like to do. And we try to do it as well as possible. Thrilled to be able to develop a partnership between EvanTell and LeadHer.

But I wanted to offer support as a Christian man to as group of Christian women starting off on following hard after the Lord and working in His harvest. As I thought about blogging in support I decided to talk to the men who support the women who are getting this off the ground.

Encourage. Applaud. Support.

New ministry can be scary, because while God knows the path, we are just learning it.So be there for the women you love and support them. Proverbs 27:17 talks about iron sharpening iron. In this case, be the steel in their lives to support them as they throw in with total trust in the Lord. They believe, but help them in their unbelief. (Mark 9:24)

Because they are fallible. They are sinful in their nature. They are human.

Just like you. Just like me.

And they need our help. Just like we need theirs.

And they deserve our help.

Probably more than we do.

They have to depend completely on the Lord, just like us.

So men, get behind them, get on board.

Let her LeadHer.

Signs of Strength

"There is no surer sign of extreme weakness of mind than the failure to recognize the unhappy state of a man without God; there is no surer sign of an evil heart than failure to desire that the eternal promises be true; nothing is more cowardly than to brazen it out with God. Let them then leave such impiety to those ill-bred enough to be really capable of it; let them at least be decent people if they cannot be Christians; let them, in short, acknowledge that there are only two classes of persons who can be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him."
Blaise Pascal - Pensées

Pascal's claim here flies in the face of what our culture today would have us believe. It seems to be a more popular opinion today that being Christian is to acknowledge some sort of weakness of mind or character, some flaw of intolerance that runs through the Christian and flows out into a professed worldview that is not in synch with how the world runs today. This passage from Pascal will not be popular but it is a comfort to those who have embraced Jesus as their salvation; it takes a strength of mind to do so and be bold and open about it. To take a stand for Christ requires the strength of taking a stand with Christ; that is, a stand against a fallen world that so desperately needs Him as Savior.

My reading of the gospel accounts forms up a clear picture in my mind of Christ as an incredibly strong man. He took on the power elite of His day and did so without fear or concern of the consequences. In fact, He knew what would come of it. And He did it anyway for us.

I am weak, I need Jesus to save me or I would be doomed, I would be lost.

I am weak, and I am strong enough to admit it.



Technorati Tags: Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Jesus, Christian

I am OK with Halloween

I have to admit, I wasn't thinking about it, but reading a blog buddy like who am i? made me realize that there is a debate out there regarding Christians participating in Halloween. Guess I have to start reading the news, thanks Barry, for the conviction!

I am OK with Halloween, I even felt good about adding this self portrait. I understand the issues and concerns around participating in Halloween, but I feel we can be in the world and not of it. We can participate in a great American pastime, the overindulgence in sugar (like Americans need a special reason to do this), and try to use it as an opportunity to share our faith while we are supercharging the neighborhood kids (as I have no children, I will sleep well when the doorbell stops ringing). It is an opportunity to engage with neighbors, strike up conversations, and show community and goodwill in a thoroughly Christian manner. All good activities, time well spent. It is what we are recommending at our church. And I think the avoidance of any demonic rituals is possible.

So, I am OK with Halloween. Whatever you do, whichever side of the debate you are on, I pray you engage in your response with the spirit of Christian love.

Technorati Tags: Halloween, Christian

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part VII: Love and Forgiveness; Time and Space

The last part of my worldview review deals with areas that can tie you up in knots because of what can appear to be contradictions. But as we have stated before, can we really expect as finite beings to fully fathom the infinitely divine?

Can a perfectly just and holy God forgive? Yet we know Him as a merciful and gracious God. How can He maintain His holiness and yet extend us such grace? If He is holy and just He cannot forgive, but if He is merciful does He lose His moral absolute?

for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:26 (NASB)

He is God and He is both the just and the justifier of those who believe in Him. He can do it because He has chosen to do so. Rather than question, I would have us be thankful. For quite frankly, the alternative is none too encouraging to entertain.

God is both within and outside of time and space. He was before time and space (that is, he was before the creation that He Himself created). He created all, but His participation and sustaining of creation means that in the end, it has no end, because He has deemed eternity for us.He has entered into history of His own choosing and as such, can give us the everlastingness we need for eternal existence. There can be none without Him.

Can you think of other points you and I need to ponder about the glorious God we serve?

He is the biggest of ideas and well beyond even that. In the scope of all history, He is the metanarrative that makes a short story out of all else.

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part VI: The Imago Dei in Relationships

How does the Trinity impact our worldview of relationships? How are we to take the attributes of the Godhead and candle our actions within our spheres of activity?

Looking at three areas: family, church and society you see some commonalities that enable you to develop a trinitarian worldview in a way that can be used consistently across your relationships.

Starting with family, you need to start with marriage. The marriage relationship most closely models the Trinity of all human relationships. You seek to make the other partner known within the context of the marital bond, which should be the strongest of all human bonds. You look to communicate with each other in the most intimate, honest and vulnerable of fashions. You enjoy each other in companionship, fellowship and friendship. You make audible expressions of love, expressions of pleasure and make known your desires to please each other. You give honor to your mate, you give gifts.You work with and for each other, you seek to submit yourself to your partner knowing the same is being done for you. You become part of each other, learning to trust and abide in each other during good times and bad, pleasure and pain, success or suffering.

You see in the marriage relationship all these coming through when one honors a partner the way the Three within the One give honor to each other. As you step into familial relationships, these become writ large on a family unit, you may lose the marital intimacy between a man and wife, but these actions are still there in a God honoring family situation.

As you move to the church setting you continue to stress the honor of others, less intimate perhaps, but with a continued mutuality. In providing glory to God and a witness to a Christian walk, these continue into societal relationships in general.

In all of these you look to avoid headship abuse, a leader must have a servant's heart, an attitude to servitude in order to effectively model biblical leadership. There should be willing submission to leadership not hostility in having to submit. If the honor and trust inherent in the Trinity are showing forth in human relationships, that should not be a burdensome ask. There should be an honoring of biblically based law and orderliness. Anarchy is not God glorifying.

As you look at your relationships, are you modelling these behaviors. Are you willing to take the first step towards a trinitarian view of how you can be a part of a bigger whole in joy and peace with God?

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part V: Being Relational

Our personaity, or who we are, is grounded in who God is. We are persons, we are relational because God is a personal, relational God. You have heard it said that you are what you eat. It is more appropriate to say we are who He is:

²⁶Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

²⁷God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

²⁸God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 1:26-28 (NASB)

What does that mean for us? We hold certain characteristics as a result of being mad ein His image to rule over the creation He made. As a result of this we are:

• Creative: we enjoy the visual and performing arts, we enjoy making things
  
• Communication: we dialogue in community, speaking and listening to each other
  
• Objective: we engage in the study of science and history
• Emotive: expressing joy, sadness and anger
• Mortal: Unlike an eternal God, we live through cycles of birth and death. But I feel we must in order to look up to the divine form our positions as fragile and mortal and in need of His protection
  
• Friendly: we seek out and engage in community
• Intimate: we look for and cherish romantic and sexual relationships. However, they can only reach the full potential designed by God if fulfilled in the man and woman marraige bond. This comes closer to the intimacy felt within the Trinity than any other human relationship can.
  
• Just: we seek to exercise justice, but hopefully tempered with mercy
• Discerning: we can distinguish between fantasy and reality (well, most of us can most of the time)

As we engage in these characteristics we are more or less like God in how we carry them out, depending on our individual characters and the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Are there one or more of these that really click with you as bringing closer in relationship with God because you feel you model them more as He would have you rather than less?

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part IV: As Long As You End Up at God

One of the things I have been thinking about a bit is the differences in trinitarian views looking at it from the western church or the eastern church perspective:

• The western perspective is to view the Trinity with emphasis on the Oneness of God. Essentially looking at the Godhead from the unified essence that is God, looking out from the One into the Three.
• The eastern perspective is to view the Trinity with emphasis on the three Persons of the Godhead and their relatedness to each other. Essentially looking at the Godhead more from the roles each of the three persons of the trinity take on in constituting the One, looking in from the Three into the One.

That has ramifications on what might get stressed in a worldview one would take. A western perspective would focus more on God's sovereignty and the predestination that is inherent in His sovereignty. An eastern perspective would focus more on human freewill and how it relates to God.

I have to admit there are parts of each view that I like. I like having a totally sovereign God that predetermines the course of events. it allows me to place the utmost value that affords me: my fate and future in the hands of a sovereign God who is merciful, wise, just and gracious. But I also like the focus to be on how I relate to God because it puts some burden on me to explore my feelings to and my obedience with the will of God.

However you approach it, you should wind up in the center with a Triune God, the God of the Bible, our God in all His divine glory. if you do not, I feel you are doing something off kilter.

As you view how you approach your view of God, do you feel more the western or eastern influences of the picture of the Trinity?

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part III: God Before Us or Without Us

One concept I have been pondering is the fact that God as a divine, eternal being, existed before Creation. Even before He created everything ex nihilo, out of nothing, He was.

Tertullian: “…before all things God was alone, being his own universe,
location, everything. He was alone, however, in the sense that there was nothing external to himself.” Adversus Praxeas 5

Tied into the fact of God's self existence is His self-sufficiency. He did not need us, yet He created us. I think it is testament to His love and grace that He would choose to share Himself with us. I wonder if given the chance to create out of nothing, we would do the same? I hardly think so.

It occurred to me that in His eternal existence prior to creation, the proper view would have been one of pantheism. God is everything and everything is God; because God is the only thing. Maybe unitheism? But I digress.

The point I wanted to make was that thinking about the fact that accepting that God always was, and was before creation, is a call to faith in the divine:

• We really do not know how much we do not know about God
• We must believe that, as a gracious and loving God, He has revealed all we need to know of Him as we live our lives on this earth
• Whatever our conceptions about God, we probably color them with our human conceptions, and the divinely infinite can never be totally understood nor explained by the finite.

If you were to describe the reason(s) God created us, what would you say they are?

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part II: Some Groundrules

I'd like to lay out some of the basics of what it means to hold to a trinitarian worldview. At least, what it means to me. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• You have to hold to the Triune God of the Bible. You need to believe in the Imago Dei (see yesterday's post) and that our basic personalities and the dignity of the individual are grounded upon the bedrock of the fact that we are made in the image of God. You have to approach the world believing in Christian monotheism.
  
• You have to hold that God is the center of everything. I am not talking pantheism where God is everything and everything is God. But you have to believe in His sovereignty, His total control of Creation. If He is not your reason for living, you are missing something.
• You have to hold that God is bigger than everything. He is outside of creation in His transcendence, He is within creation in His immanence, but He is not everything and everything is not Him.
• You can never completely emulate Him, but you must not stop trying. We are to run the good race, we are to finish strong. God knows we cannot get there without Him, but He wants us to try anyway.
• While God is the center of it all, our focus is on His Son. He saved us, we are to be like Him to the extent we can.

I'd like to hear what you have for some of the ground rules you may hold on a Trinitarian worldview; a view which I believe is the appropriate Christian worldview that one should hold to.

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part I: Imago Dei

I have decided to rerun a series of posts that I wrote for another blog I was writing for a bit but have since stopped. It is on my thoughts around a worldview revolving around the concept of the Trinity. I think it is would be worthwhile to re-engage some dialogue around this so over the next 7 days I will rerun the series, with some minor modifications. For those of you who read and commented on the series in the other blog, my profuse apologies, but this has been on my mind and I wanted to air it again. I beg your patience and pardon.

The series begins with the concept of the Imago Dei, the Image of God. Simply put, Imago Dei asserts than we are made in the image of God.

²⁶Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the
cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creeps on the earth." ²⁷God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27 (NASB)

I believe it is important to start with this fact because if we are created in His image, we should share some of His attributes, even if we are imperfect in our sinful nature. Our worldview should be shaped by who we are in relationship to God.

Who are we? In the broadest of senses we are:

• Capable of thought, reasoning, voluntary activity. We are emotional, we can love, hate, grow angry, happy or sad. We are relational, we seek out others in community, we seek out our Creator in praise and worship.
• Capable of creative activity. We look to learn, to build, to make new things out of old things. We fall short of being able to create out of nothing, but we are driven to create nonetheless.
• Capable of dominion. We seek to control our environment, others and often at our peril, our God.
• Capable of thought beyond this life, Unlike animals who are in the moment at all times, we can look beyond today and even tomorrow. We can plan and anticipate, and even ponder eternity.

These are attributes that mirror, although dimly, our divine Creator. But it is the very things He bestowed on us to make up be in His image that can be the root of our destruction. In our sin, we often think and act against God, taking the gifts He has given us and try to come out from under His sovereign will.

Are there other aspects/characteristics/attributes you see in us under the Imago Dei?

Babies/Maybes/Rabies

I have been thinking of three different groups of people lately and how to interact with them:

• Baby Christians - People who are new in their faith and trust in Jesus. Am I coming alongside to help encourage and teach, to help answer their questions and help embolden them in their faith? It was not that long ago that I was one and I think of the people who took the time to pour into me. I would not be where I am in my walk if not for them. You and I should be doing the same for those who have started their walk and are behind us in the path; just as those ahead of us should be calling back to us from time to time.

• Maybe Christians - We all know some, and maybe we exhibit these tendencies ourselves in our moments of weakness. We say we trust in Jesus, but are often tepid in our behavior, less than bold in our witness. Maybe we want to be PC, maybe we want to avoid ridicule or worse. But somehow our actions do not align with our words the way they should. I need to encourage these people as well, as I need encouragement when I feel my will to the lord wavering a bit. No condemnation, but love and exhortation. We may all be in this space once in a while.

• Rabid Christians - You have seen these people. So on fire for the Lord that even other Christians are afraid to get too close for fear of getting scorched. People you want to say to "Dude, I love your zeal, but you are scaring the pets and the children off". People who are bold to the point of being on the fringe, people you want to lasso and bring back into the fold so they can channel their energy into less frightening patterns of behavior. But remember their zeal is from the Lord, and maybe the problem isn't them, but you.
  

The thing is, I believe we are all in each of these categories at some point of time. All need encouragement, all need caring and community.

²⁸And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 (NASB)

All can work towards God's glory.

Become A Friend of "My Christian Blogs"

This great idea is the Brain Child of Tony Kummer. He has created My Christian Blogs as a place, a crossroads of Christian blogging for all of us to stop by and see what is out in the blogosphere being done by our brothers and sisters in Christ, aggregated in one place for us to view.

Stop by to sample the goods and participate.

Why is it all the good ideas are taken by someone else by the time I see them and think them up for myself?

Thanks Tony, for serving the Lord with a true servant's heart.

If Christians Were Clocks...

...what kind would you be?




Would you be up in some tower banging away for all to hear, but basically unapproachable and so, mostly ignored but for a passing glance now and then?












Would you be some oddball clock that people mostly laughed at and you told the tale of time?















Would you just hang out with other clocks, seemingly in the world, but really completely apart and unconnected in any way?









Would you be an insistent sort, getting up in people's faces until they listened (and most likely turned you off and went about their business)?










Or would you be on a busy street, providing much needed help to those as they rushed by in their lives? Available, but apart; in the world, not of it. Noticeable and reachable, yet uncompromising in the message you gave out?


Tell me, tell me please, what kind of clock would you be?

Following Jesus-Part II

Monday I got the chance to attend a really good session at Dallas Theological Seminary hosted by the Center for Christian Leadership. It was entitled Following Jesus In a World Like Ours.

Yesterday I posted on Assessing Ourselves in Our Cultural Climate. Today I will talk about Engaging One Another in Community. Jeff Bingham presented this portion of the session. Dr. Bingham started with some statements of what is necessary for us to be authentic Christians:

• Authentic worship requires us to be reconciled to each other within the community
• Authentic language about loving God demands loving relationships with each other
• Authentic devotional life requires honorable relationships within the community, especially that of marriage
• God did not create us to be alone with Him; He created us to be with Him in community

Bingham discussed that we have reduced community activities due to items such as television and computers making leisure and entertainment making it easy to go it alone; with suburbanization making it more difficult to get together. Bingham went on to descibe several false concepts of Christian community:

• Individualism: thought that it is not essential to be spiritually nurtured in a communal fashion
• Tribalism: a commmunity is adequate unto itself without interfacing with other communities
• Presentism:the community is perfectly governed and provided for in the present without connection to past Christianity
• Concertism:if you get people in same place witnessing same event, you have Christian community without regard for whether there is actual communal interaction

Bingham pointed to scripture to deal with these false concepts, most specifically 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 for the utilizing of different giftsd together in community; Romans 12:4-5 for the concept that believers gather together and complete each other and Ephesians 2:11-22 for a description of a new Christian community. Practical steps included:

• Enhancing the communal nature and frequency of the Lord's supper
• Adapting the communal identity before the individual identity
• Acknowledge that some of the most significant spiritual growth occurs in community and not all in an individual personal relationship
  
• Establish accountability with other communities including the Chrisitian past

Tomorrow we will discuss how to engage in worship.

A Servant's Heart

I have been thinking quite a bit about having a servant's heart lately. Looking inside myself to see if I truly have one or not. Looking to see if I am kidding myself about where my heart really is (as I am the easiest person for me to fool).

I have gotten involved recently in some activities that touch upon the type of ministry work I feel I would like to do as I progress through seminary, looking to focus on:

• Working with other ministries sharing my financial and management experience
• Working with business people sharing my experiences as a Christian,and for a long time non-Christian (actually, often unChristian but that now sounds so uncharitable and well un-Christian) business executive
• Working with young men and women coming into the workforce as a mentor or coach as to starting and flourishing in a career
  

I have opportunities to do some of this, and I see the Lord putting more in my path in the future. I am thrilled.

But am I doing it with a servant's heart? I look at how I struggle with anger, pride, frustration and selfishness and I know i have a way to go. I look at my Lord Jesus and I know I have a LONG way to go.

I believe this struggle is natural and normal and we all face it in differing degrees at differing times. The key to me is to recognize the struggle and reach out to the Lord for help in overcoming it quickly. To me, my progress is measured in how fast I turn to Him, not in eliminating the feelings and behaviors I know fall short of His ideal. I am never going to get there.

"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."

As Philippians 1:6 states I am a work in progress and I know when I am going to get to the finish line.

So until I do and become His perfect servant, let me struggle to have a servant's heart, a servant's hands and a servant's mind as I walk my narrow road towards Him.