I'm trying to save the planet

No room for small ambitions with Nancy Pelosi. She is justified in shutting down House debate, because she is trying to save the planet. Gives her the leeway to do some stuff doesn’t it?

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

“I respect the office that I hold,” she says. “And when you win the election, you win the majority, and what is the power of the speaker? To set the agenda, the power of recognition, and I am not giving the gavel away to anyone.”

Let’s face it, Washington: This speaker is different. She’s the first woman ever to hold the post and a very tough one at that, with a penchant for the mystical.

everybody buckle your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy ride.

hat tip to Byron York on the Corner

I draw your attention again to the article on Barack Obama that I mentioned a few weeks ago. Here is another clip to show how the idea of redemption through politics is in direct contravention of the idea of redemption through Jesus:

Obama has revived a cruel mirage, but the good news is that the country has defenses against his brand of redemptive politics. Some of these defenses are constitutional, others cultural. The very strength of America’s religious ideal of redemption has restrained, though it has not entirely forestalled, the development of alternative secular ideals of redemption. A religiously inspired belief in original sin has made Americans wary of succumbing to the Pelagian notion that a mere mortal, however charismatic, can build the New Jerusalem out of purely secular materials. The country’s constitutional system, itself founded on the theory of original sin, has created a perpetual conflict of factions and interests that so far has prevented any single party from imposing a monolithic unity from above, such as Europe’s collectivists were able to do.

Nancy Pelosi may be a very good politician, but she does not possess the means to “save the planet”. The fact that she thinks she might is frankly frightening.

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what he said II

what he said. I just finished Ed’s book, Planting Missional Churches. Very good indeed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56J-xb3flJ8&hl=en&fs=1]

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regulative principle of worship

Before yesterday, I had heard of the regulative principle of worship, but I hadn’t paid any attention to it. I knew that Timmy Brister had made it the number one question on the ask Mark Driscoll anything contest, but I had just casually read through the comments without paying attention. It was like somebody was talking about the finer points of mechanical engineering tolerance limits of various metals. I understood the individual words, but not the sense of them together.

Yesterday a friend of mine pointed me to a review of The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball. I had mentioned that I read this book back in 2003 and that it had started the process of waking me up to some of the problems of “church” as it is done today. My friends love me and want to keep me straight. I sincerely appreciate the help and the encouragement. It is an awesome thing that we have when we can have a role in goading each other to love and good works and to come alongside one another when we fall.

Anyway, I am reading the review and it is pretty good. I agree with most of it. Then I hit this paragraph:

Kimball’s perspective on church life is also problematic. Underlying all of his thinking about worship is the mistaken notion that our style of worship is completely neutral. But the Bible indicates that we are simply not free to worship God in any way we see fit in our corporate gatherings. The 2nd Commandment makes that quite clear, as do Exodus 32:1-4, Deuteronomy 4:15-19, and II Samuel 6:3-7. We are permitted to worship God only as he has prescribed in his Word. We may really want to finger-paint in our churches services, but God has not commanded us to finger-paint so we should not. In addition, many Christians have thought it unwise to use crosses and pictures of Jesus in worship, fearing that it would be impossible not to venerate the object or picture itself. In addition though pagans, deists, and pantheists enjoy them, Christians have generally though that nature scenes are inappropriate for Christian worship.

I read the verses contained in the quote. And this “…but God has not commanded us to finger-paint so we should not.”

Anybody see any issues with those verses being used to support this conclusion? anyone?

Then I started googling. Wow. I have now found a whole nother area where people get to be weird, prideful and look down their nose at the rest of christianity.

This fellow does the best job I found of putting the best foot forward on the Regulative Principle of Worship There are many others who are much less able.

Here is Mark Driscoll’s take on video, and here is the podcast version.

Go study it for yourself. Tell me what you think about the idea that because God has not commanded finger painting in worship, then we should not finger paint. Before you get too sure of an answer, God also never commanded the use of microphones, electric lights, amplified music, air conditioners, pianos or even announcements. Just sayin’. Even the hard core believers in this principle who show up singing the Psalms without accompaniment will probably do so in an air conditioned room with electric lights, and they might even make announcements of upcoming events in the life of their church.

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should I/you be a church planter?

20 questions to ask yourself from Acts 29 via Adrian Warnock

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creepy

A fellow has posted a list of the top ten things that creep him out about Barack Obama.

number 8 on the list is the one that has just been amazing to me watching this campaign, it seriously creeps me out:

8. It creeps me out that the press seems hypnotized by this guy. Grown men and women blubbering like babes when talking about how exciting he is, how mesmerizing he is when he speaks. It’s as if “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” has come to life and the pods have been placed in every newsroom in America. It isn’t just Crissy Mathews and MSNBC. It’s news anchors at CNN, reporters for Time and Newsweek, editorial writers at WaPo and the New York Times. Big media is in the tank for this guy in a big way. They have thrown off all semblance of fairness (never mind objectivity) and just don’t care that people know they are in Obama’s corner. They can’t be shamed into changing. They evidently won’t be deflected from doing their best to elect Obama.

This kind of thing causes the hairs on the back of my neck to prick up – like walking through a graveyard at midnight. It is just plain creepy – no other word for it.

For instance there was the guy who wrote this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. Was he joking? Is he embarrassed for himself at all?

Poor Hillary recognized this and fought as hard as she could to bust his hammerlock on the media’s affections, but without success.

hat tip to Jennifer Rubin

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happiness

I added a page that I wrote a while back about Happiness in a marriage. The tab is to the left of this.

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Deacon stuff

I added the narrative explanation of deacon qualifications and role below the outline on the Deacon Outline page. Yes, that’s right, even more words.

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the boys are at camp

Joseph and Benjamin started two weeks at Camp Peniel yesterday. They and their friend Daniel will be doing “work camp”. That means they will serve meals, clean up afterward and help out in the barn. They will also get to do fun things as well and they will have their own group Bible time in the evenings with their work crew leader. It ought to be a good experience for them.

Here are some photos of the place they are staying. If you click on one you will go to the larger size on my flickr page.

Here is the washroom:
outdoor sinks?
side view:
sinks and showers

here is the shower (there are two like this):
outdoor shower

and here is the bunkhouse:
bunkhousebunkhouse

bonus because its cute, here is Daniel’s little brother on top of the bunkhouse:
gavin at the top

Please pray for Daniel, Benjamin and Joseph that God uses these two weeks of service and fun and study to speak to their hearts.

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more on church, since its Sunday

Late last year or early this year (time flies) I read a book called The Unity Factor by Larry Osborne. The book was very good and I recommend it to anyone who is in ministry leadership as a staff or lay person.

Larry had a section in the book where he talked about the differences in leading groups of various sizes and how things change for the leadership team as the church group grows. If I remember correctly (I passed the book on, so I can’t check), he said at the beginning it is like a golf game. Basically a solo activity up to a foursome. Spending a lot of quality time together in leadership activity, fellowshipping, living life together etc.

As the church grows, the leadership becomes more like a basketball team. They have more specialized roles and rely on the other team members to get things done in their area. There is less personal interaction among the team due to the constraints of time and the need to get the job done. But a basketball team still mostly practices and plays together as a complete unit.

At some point the leadership team is more like a football team. There is a high degree of specialization needed to get the job done. Whole units like the offensive line will prepare together and work together to accomplish their task. The time for the whole group to come together and fellowship is extremely limited.

I bring this up, because I just read an article that Steve McCoy pointed me to by Tim Keller called Process Managing Church Growth.

With a juicy title like that, I bet all of you are already over there taking in all 16 pages of goodness. Don’t worry I will wait for you to get back………..

All right. Now here is the question. How does a local church that wants to reach the lost with the gospel and grow as a result thereof avoid the trap of becoming merely a self sustaining machine rounding up other christians from other churches? What do you do in the early stages to build in core values that are God honoring? Chris has a series of questions that he is asking that need to be faced head on by anybody involved in church planting. They are:

1. Are we more focused on our dreams then the gospel’s dreams? More people, big buildings, cool titles, write books, speak at conferences, etc.
2. Are we to scared to take risks and live like Jesus?
3. Dealing with messy people stinks-so maybe we subversively avoid those people and their messes?
4. We really don’t care about the lost and the poor. They become and inconvenience to our daily lives and church rhythms and budgets.
5. Could the one thing that is standing in the way of the gospel be the church of Jesus?

I wonder if we (church) really understand the responsibility we have as partners in the gospel with Jesus? If we fail to use God’s wisdom in a way that focuses on the true essence of the gospel and mission, then we damage the potential of the church and squander the ability to maximize our talents. Are we hiding our talents or multiply them? The Master gave us a ton of responsibility.

All of us should be asking ourselves how our church can both grow through reaching and discipling our neighbors for Christ, while avoiding “mission creep” away from why we started the church. How do we put enough systems in place to be good stewards of the resources with which God entrusts us, without becoming a bureaucratic nightmare?

Just asking the questions.

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new page/rock of offense

I just put up a longer piece on a new page that I wrote back in 2005 about Jesus and the woman at the well. The tab is above.

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what are essential elements of a church?

John MacArthur has a post up about ties that bind; things that local churches must have in common. His list is good and includes:

A high view of God
The absolute authority of scripture
Sound doctrine
Personal holiness
Spiritual authority

I don’t think this list, while good, (and the explanations under each topic are outstanding) is complete. the first comment on the post points out the need for a church to be outward focused. I especially liked the comment of Mark Sohmer which was:

Commitment to Reaching Out to the Lost

As Spurgeon said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” 1860.

What else could be added to the list, if anything?

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friday is for photos

Quarries Lake evening
reach for the light

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what is our hope?

I Peter 1:13 says that we need to prepare our minds for action (the KJV word picture is to “gird up the loins of your mind” I love that!) be sober minded and set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If we are going to focus our attention and avoid the distractions of this world in favor of such hope, we need to know what it is. What is our hope? To whom was Peter talking? According to verse 1, he was talking to the elect exiles of the dispersion scattered throughout Asia Minor.

Peter more fully describes the hope he is talking about in verses 3-9:

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5. who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7. so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9. obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

and he juxtaposes the hope they have in what is to come against the various trials that are grieving them here on the earth. In other words, the hope upon which they are called to fully set their minds had nothing to do with making their present earthly circumstances better. All of their trials were designed by God to test the genuineness of their faith so that it would result in praise, honor and glory to God at the end.

The hope was and is salvation by Jesus in Heaven where the tested genuineness of their faith would redound to the the glory of God. That is why He saved us in the first place. To the praise of His glorious grace. That is why we are called to share the gospel with others, to increase and magnify the praise of His glorious grace.

Now then, think about the prosperity gospel preachers. What is the hope to which they are calling people? More money, better relationships, better and more satisfying work and career…etc. How biblical is that hope? Whose desires are the object of that kind of hope? Who is at the center of that worldview?

Sean Lucas had a post about Joel Osteen recently that nailed the difference between the true hope of the Bible to which we are called to focus our minds and the false hope of the prosperity gospel. Spend a little time and go read the whole thing. It is great. Here are a couple of pieces of it to get you started:

I think the driving reason that Osteen is hugely popular is that he sells hope. Books like Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You provide a message of hope that my life does not have to be the way it is right now; that God is powerful and able to change my life; that God is profoundly interested in my life and is near to me. And while that message of hope is packaged in the code language of the prosperity Gospel and positive psychology (like the phenomenally successful book by Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier), at the end of the day, people leave Lakewood feeling as though there is a greater meaning and purpose for their lives.

….
The biblical priority is that God in the Gospel rescues, delivers, frees and sustains us to make much of God. He is the great good in the Good News–and it truly is amazing: that God would save his wayward children for the fame of his name; would shape worshippers who will find their deepest satisfaction in making much of God; and would gather together a worldwide body of worshippers who hallow his name

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one of the things I like about Austin

The pagans are pagans and proud of it. I saw this bumper sticker in traffic earlier this year and took a picture of it with my iPhone (great little phone and minicomputer, not such a great camera) so the quality isn’t that great. what it says is “Pagan and Proud.”

pagan and proud

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Read your Bible

Thanks to Todd Bumgarner who pointed me to this long quote by Bishop J.C. Ryle about the importance of reading your Bible. Here is a piece:

You live in a world where your soul is in constant danger. Enemies are round you on every side. Your own heart is deceitful. Bad examples are numerous. Satan is always laboring to lead you astray. Above all false doctrine and false teachers of every kind abound. This is your great danger.

To be safe you must be well armed. You must provide yourself with the weapons which God has given you for your help. You must store your mind with Holy Scripture. This is to be well armed.

Arm yourself with a thorough knowledge of the written word of God. Read your Bible regularly. Become familiar with your Bible. . . . Neglect your Bible and nothing that I know of can prevent you from error if a plausible advocate of false teaching shall happen to meet you. Make it a rule to believe nothing except it can be proved from Scripture. The Bible alone is infallible. . . . Do you really use your Bible as much as you ought?

There are many today, who believe the Bible, yet read it very little. Does your conscience tell you that you are one of these persons?

Ephesians 6:10-19 talks about putting on the full armor of God in order to be able to stand against the schemes of the Devil. John MacArthur’s commentary on Ephesians turned me onto something several years ago.

Verse 17 says that we need to “take….the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.” The greek word for sword is “machaira” and the greek word for word is “rhema“. A machaira was a short sword or dagger. It was not the long broadsword that we think of a Roman or ancient Greek soldier carrying. In addition, a rhema is “a word” not “the word” which would have been “logos.”

Paul in Ephesians 6:17 is giving us a picture of scripture as a very specific word used by the Holy Spirit in a precise situation where that scripture would be useful, much like a dagger has to be used at close range and in a very particular manner. Daggers and short swords are both offensive and defensive weapons. They must be used both to thrust at an opponent to harm them, but also to parry the thrust of that opponent.

The only way that the sword/dagger of the Spirit, can be useful to a Christian wearing the full armor of God, is if that Christian has taken the time to prepare for the moment when a particular rhema is needed for either offense or defense.

What Bishop Ryle was stressing over a hundred years ago is the same thing that Paul was telling Timothy. A worker for God must study, be diligent, in order to be ready. It is also what Jesus told His disciples when he sent them out. They needed to be as wise as serpents.

We must read and know the Bible so that when we get in a situation where we can be used by God to speak His word to someone, we have a rhema that is fit to be used ready to go. If we have done our part, then Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit would do his part and bring the word to our mind.

Of course, the overriding reason why we read the Bible is because we get to read the Bible.  God breathed it out for us to have in order to get to know Him better.  As persons who love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, we want to spend time in His word so that He can speak to us.  A nice side benefit of this passionate pursuit of God’s word is that we have a rhema fit for the occasion ready to go at all times.

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Did Jesus Claim to be Messiah (the Christ)?

Some of you have seen John Hagee’s video advertising one of his books. In it he makes the startling claim that the Jews can’t be responsible for rejecting Jesus as Messiah, because He never claimed to be Messiah. This video is just amazing because surely John Hagee should know better, but he is blind. See Isaiah 42, especially verses 18-25

I bring this up today because John MacArthur has posted an outstanding roundup of virtually all of Jesus’ claims to be God. It is an astonishingly long list for a pastor like Hagee to have missed.

here is MacArthur’s conclusion:

“All of the above lines of evidence converge on one inescapable point: Jesus Christ claimed absolute equality with God. Thus He could say, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30); “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me” (John 12:45); and “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (14:9–10). And thus we can conclude that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9), and we can worship Him accordingly as “our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:13).”

The Hagee video has bothered me for a while. I think it shows a susceptibility to which all of us are prone. All of us have the potential to read the Bible to see what we want to see rather than what is there.

Reading the Bible fully to take the text as it is rather than trying to find pieces to fit into a preexisting theological framework is very difficult. It requires the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit and it requires that we approach the word with humility

Obviously, it is very important to read the bible and spend time getting to know God through His word to us that He breathed out for us to have. It is just as important to spend that time wisely by approaching the Bible as it is rather than as we wish it to be.

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Vista Church podcasts

I am trying an experiment to see if I can link to the Apple Store. If I am doing this right, this link ought to take you to the Vista Church podcasts in the iTunes store. If you get there, download and listen to the Nehemiah series, they are great.

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Test from the iPhone

Walking with Julie right now and testing the wordpress application for iPhone blogging. Beautiful day so far.

photo

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Hospitality

In our bible study this morning we talked a little bit about hospitality.  We are studying Hebrews and we have arrived at chapter 13 verse 2.

This passage seems to echo the instruction of I Peter 4:7-9 that we keep our love for one another at full strength and don’t neglect to show hospitality. One of the qualifications of an elder is that he be hospitable. Jesus emphasized the necessity of showing hospitality to strangers in order to demonstrate physically His love for the world.

Once we see this clear command, some questions arise in our mind. How do we do this? How do we show hospitality to others as a lifestyle? Which others? what boundaries for personal safety are allowed, if any?

A personal example of this lifestyle is shown by David Crowder in his recent article, Rid the Yard of Sticks.
It is an entertaining read with a gut punch. Here is a clip:

I feel the need to point out that I live in one of the more economically depressed sections of town, as in, seriously, two of our neighbors call themselves the Rockstars because, they sell “rock,” (as in crack cocaine) – they do a brisk business. So, again, this time with context, my wife and I are sitting on our couch on a Saturday afternoon watching the “sport” of golf with lots and lots of Fidelity and Buick commercials.

Abruptly, I am jarred from this, my privileged slumber, as, “David! David!” is yelled at loud volume from somewhere behind me. I now feel the need to point out that we do not have any curtains on our windows. We’ve been in our house 6 years and curtains have held only occasional importance, like now, with, “David! David!” being shouted from the street at the window located directly behind my head, which is again causing me to think, “Seriously, we’ve been here 6 years? We need some curtains.” I turn and peek over the couch. It’s John. I say this to my wife, “Oh, man. It’s John.”

Hat tip to Chris for the Crowder article

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Piper is coming to town

John Piper is coming to Austin in October.


When the Righteous Suffer | Desiring God 2008 Regional Conference
thanks to Frank for letting me know.
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Houston

We just got home from a trip to Houston to see Julie’s brother and family. A little celebration for Julie finishing her cancer treatment. Julie’s niece is interning with the Houston Astros and was able to get us some really good tickets. My 300mm lens put me in the middle of the action. Good times, good times.

astros v. cubs

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tribal or missionary minded

This post by the Rambling Pastor Man pointed me to this post by Tullian Tchividjian.

Tullian’s post is an extended excerpt from his forthcoming book Unfashionable. It explores the difference between being tribally minded and missionary minded.

Here is a quote, but you really should go read the whole post.

“[I]n order for us to experience the full range of what it means to be “fearfully and wonderfully” made—to be human—we must avoid tribal-mindedness.
You’d expect that the people who would understand this best and resist tribal mindedness the most would be followers of Christ….
There’s a major difference between having a tribal mindset and a missionary mindset. The highest value of a tribally minded person is self-protection. They ask questions like: Since I feel the safest around those who are just like me, how can I protect myself from those who are different than I am? So they intentionally surround themselves with people who think the way they think, like the things they like, and despise the things they despise. As a result, they live with a sense of superiority, looking down on those who are not like them (for half my life I was convinced that surfers like me were far cooler than anyone on the face of this earth).  
In contrast to a tribal minded person, the highest value of a missionary minded person is not self-protection but self-sacrifice. A missionary minded person is a person that exists, not primarily for himself but for others. She is a person that is willing to set aside personal preferences in service to those whose preferences are different than hers. Missionaries are people who are willing to be inconvenienced, discomforted, and spent for the well-being of others. The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we be missionary minded, because the gospel is the story of God sacrificing himself for others.”

wow.

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My Role

Chris Marlow wants to know what we think our role in the Kingdom of Heaven is.

I think mine is the same as or similar to these guys

I have enjoyed teaching the Bible over the years and I look forward to doing so again in the future.

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friday is for photos

there is a fellow who says that Friday is for photos.

like the man says:

clouds and sunclouds and sunGod Bless America and God Bless Texas

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emerging church?

Recently some friends of mine wanted to make sure that I read this book. I will do so soon.

In the meantime, the reviews are interesting reading all by themselves.

I liked this part of William Muehlenberg’s review of the book:

“Consistent with postmodernism, the emerging church folk have a strong dislike of rationality, theology, and propositional truth. They look down on dogma, rules, teaching, preaching, boundaries and doctrine. While they reject some things we should reject – legalism, unloving judgmentalism, head over heart, and so on – they have a tendency of throwing the baby out with the bath water. In reacting to one extreme, they go way over to another extreme. What is needed is biblical balance, not wild pendulum swings.”

Myself, by contrast: I love love love rationality, theology and propositional truth. I believe dogma (a limited universe of things for which I will die, to be sure), teaching, preaching and doctrine are essential. (I am not sure what he means by boundaries, and I probably disagree with including that one on this list.) And my life for the last 20 years has been a never ending quest for balance.

But foundationally, I believe God’s nature is rational, theological and propositional. I believe this because I have spent time with what He breathed for us to have in order to know Him. To me theopneustos is one of the best words in the Bible. Without it, we wouldn’t have any other words at all.

I do also believe that God is relational in the fullest meaning of that word. He walked in Eden with Adam and Eve. Before the foundation of the world he chose us for the praise of his glorious grace. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus spent three years building relationships with men and women so that they would learn and do the same when he left.

We need to relate to people where they are. We can’t expect them to join us where we gather. We can present propositional, theological, rational truth to our neighbors in the context of shared life experiences. Lives on mission is what I am on about.  I don’t think that is “emerging”, I think it is our assigned task as ministers of reconciliation as well as our joy and opportunity.

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