The Tipping Point & The Gospel

I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Its a great book. Its a book about a lot of things. Its helps us realize a basic biblical principle as well: little things matter because they lead to big things. Its why God took away the kingship from Saul (because he didn't wait for Samuel). Its why God didn't let Moses go into the Promised Land (because he hit a rock with a staff instead of speaking to it). Its the little things. The little things are everything.

The Tipping Point revolves around the little things as they relate to social epidemics. Gladwell defines the Tipping Point this way:

It's the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It's the boiling point. It's the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. AIDS tipped in 1982, when it went from a rare disease affecting a few gay men to a worldwide epidemic. Crime in New York City tipped in the mid 1990's, when the murder rate suddenly plummeted. When I heard that phrase for the first time I remember thinking--wow. What if everything has a Tipping Point?

 He says there are three things that cause something to 'tip':

(1) The Law of the Few: "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social skills." Gladwell describes these people in the following ways:

Connectors are the people who "link us up with the world ... people with a special gift for bringing the world together." To illustrate, Gladwell cites the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Milgram's experiments in the small world problem, Dallas businessman Roger Horchow, the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" trivia game, and Chicagoan Lois Weisberg. 

Mavens are "information specialists", or "people we rely upon to connect us with new information." They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others. 

Salesmen are "persuaders", charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They tend to have an indefinable trait that goes beyond what they say, that makes others want to agree with them. Gladwell's examples include California businessman Tom Gau and news anchor Peter Jennings, and he cites several studies about how people are persuaded.

(2) The Stickiness Factor: the specific content of a message that makes it memorable and have impact. The children's television programs Sesame Street and Blue's Clues are specific instances of enhancing stickiness and systematically engineering stickiness into a message.

(3) The Power of Context: Human behavior is sensitive to and strongly influenced by its environment. As Gladwell says, "Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur." For example, "zero tolerance" efforts to combat minor crimes such as fare-beating and vandalism on the New York subway led to a decline in more violent crimes city-wide. Gladwell describes the bystander effect, and explains how Dunbar's number plays into the tipping point, using Rebecca Wells' novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, evangelist John Wesley, and the high-tech firm Gore Associates.

For a Christian and a Pastor I think this book works in a number of important ways. The most important social epidemic in history is the Gospel of Jesus. I read this book asking: How do we use these basic principles of a spreading epidemic (obviously under the Lordship and Sovereignty of God) to spread the Gospel? How do we use the Law of the Few--focused on connectors? How do we use the stickiness of the message and the methodology of Gospel-centered living? How do we use the power of context including church communities and their personalities, attitudes, and behavior for the spreading of the message of Jesus?

Such is the challenge to the Church. How do we make the Gospel the fastest growing epidemic to effect change for the glory of God?

saints and SINNERS

A few weeks ago we, as a church community, starting a study in 1 & 2 Samuel (at DSF, our churches evening service) - the story of the life of David. I knew I wanted to do this series for awhile, I just didn't know what angle to come at it from. I prayed and thought around the text for some time, thinking about a series title that would capture what 1 & 2 Samuel is about, but something directly applicable to our lives. The series title, and angle, dawned on me one day while driving. It is an idea so elemental to being human: the biblical fact that we are both fundamentally saints and sinners. I did not really realize at the time how deep this title was, and how it would go on to shape so much of what I and others would be living through as we have been studying the text together.

We live schizophrenic lives as human beings. We have great moments where we act like we were intended: helping, serving, loving, worshiping. But at the same time, in the same day, hour or minute we do the most evil, selfish things. The week we started the series someone dropped cookies off telling me how much I blessed them, and the next day I got a call from a friend who was, with good reason, angry at me because I had shared something with someone that I should not have. I was reminded that being human is hard work, and that I am a saint and a sinner.

How are we saints? We are made in the image of God (Gen 1.16-28). We have attributes that are like God: Goodness, Love, Justice, Creativity. Theologians call these the Communicable Attributes of God. Attributes communicated to humans. This is the only reason we are capable of any thing that remotely resembles goodness. This is due to the common grace of God. There are also Incommunicable Attributes of God: Perfection, Unchangeableness, Omnipresence. The Bible reminds is that while we are made in his image, we are not him.

How are we sinners? We fell (Gen 3). We are deeply effected in every part of ourselves by sin and death. We are totally depraved. Capable of no good and pure thing (Rom 3.10-18). We are corrupt in the deepest parts of ourselves. This is important to understand. Total depravity is often a misunderstood doctrine, as if it is saying that human beings are as bad as they possibly could be. But this is not true. The doctrine indicates the extent of evil in our lives; that evil has touched, and harmed, every part of us: "our moral natures, rationality, sexuality--our very view of the world and our most fundamental motives" (John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It, 49)

Bring these two aspects of ourselves together and you get a person who is subject to the ways of the fallen world and somehow connected to something that transcends himself. In his book The Nature and Destiny of Man, celebrated theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, says:

“The obvious fact is that man is a child of nature, subject to its ways, compelled by it necessity, driven by impulses, and confined within the brevity of the years which nature permits its varied organic forms. The other less obvious fact is that man is a spirit who stands outside of nature, life, himself, his reason and the world. In its purest form the Christian view of man regards man as a unity of God-likeness and creature-liness in which he remains a creature even in the highest spiritual dimensions of his existence.”

Life is about living in the midst of the tension this reality creates. We live between these two poles. Two weeks ago I started the sermon with a clip of Gollum/Smeagol arguing with himself and said that of all the LOTR characters, the Bible tells us we should most immediately identify with him. We are Smeagol, God's creation, beautiful and full of potential. But all of that potential has been corrupted by our sinfulness. We are deeply messed up people. Deeply sinful. Liberals tend to focus on the saint part, and ignore the sinner part of ourselves. Fundamentalists tend to focus on the sinner part and marginalize the saint part of ourselves.

As I reflect on the Bible, think about my life, and the lives of those I pastor I have come to conclude two disturbing but liberating truths about being human. First, our default position is never Jesus. Because we are born into sin, our natural proclivity is toward sin, and the father of all lies, Satan. Our nature is to be turned in on ourselves. That is why the Reformer Martin Luther defined sin as Homo incurvatus - mankind turned in on himself. Our heart is curved away from God. "There are none who seeks for God" (Rom 3.11). We begin not where Adam started but where he finished. Disobedient, selfish, sinful, disconnected from God.

Second, we all have the potential to be the next murderer, thief or adulterer. I am not sure we believe this. I am not sure we have all come to terms with the fact that we all have the potential to be the next Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin. What makes them different than you? Were they born twisting their mustache's hatching plots to destroy the world? No. They were once helpless babies dependent on their mothers; playing with friends and siblings; asking the same questions we all ask, feeling the same pain we all feel. The reality is, they were sinners, just like all of us, and the same weakness that ran through their veins runs through each one of us. Two use a cowboy image, there are no white hats and black hats. There are only black hats. The only white hat to ever have entered the earth was that worn by Jesus.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn put it this:

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

The potential for great sinfulness runs through the hearts of every human being. We are all guilty before a holy God. Still, I don't think you believe me. You don't really believe you could be the next murderer do you? If you don't believe that, than you have missed the message of the Bible. Last night I preached about Saul. He ended poorly. We all have that potential. Many connect Saul with Judas - betrayer, suicide etc., What makes you better than either of these men? 

We all have the potential to be Judas. In a sense we are already Judas... every day. Some of us every hour.

Listen to the story Jesus told about people who think they are not Judas or Saul or evil at all:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18.9-14)

Do you view yourself as utterly sinful before a holy God, no more righteous than anyone on the earth? 

This is the only way to come into the Kingdom. As a child. Humble. Not boasting of any good thing. Asking God to forgive you and apply to you the righteousness of Jesus, because you have no righteousness of your own to offer.

Believe it.

Not to be overly dramatic but the reality is living in light of this is the only way to move forward and makes sense of your life.

SELAH: Remembering...

One of the key roles Torah (the five books of Moses) played in Israel's history was to help them practice dense memory while living in pagan cultures--to remember. While living in Babylonian exile they would read Genesis and Exodus to remind themselves that those surrounding narratives were not true, and that  they served the one true God of all the world; YHWH, who had made them and liberated them from Egypt. One of its key roles was the role of helping Israel to remembering. 

Remembering is integral to what it means to be human. To stop and remember and to dwell deeply on the past, to put the present into context and help us move forward into the future. The Hebrews have a great word that captures the idea of stopping and contemplating something deeply--SELAH. We read it in the Psalms many times. SELAH is a liturgico-musical mark--an instruction on the reading of the text, something like "stop and listen". This word occurs seventy-one times in thirty-nine of the Psalms, and three times in Habakkuk 3. Its a beautiful concept that we in the West have to be forced into sometimes. Days like today are good reminders. A forced and instructed SELAH--"stop and listen"--in the context of a Canadian Stat Holiday. Add to this the idea of Torah (remembering). 

What are we remembering? The selfless sacrifice of those generations that fought and died in two horrific wars to allow us to help others. They fought against oppression and fascism, and for Canadian freedom and democracy--ideals that continue to be fought for around the world today. This day is about remembering the fallen. It is not about using this day on either side of the present political debate about whether we agree, or disagree with present wars, or even whether we agree or disagree with WWI and WWII (there are those who think these wars were illegitimately fought by the West, though I disagree). But this day is not about that, it is about remembering the fallen, who fought and died for the freedoms and blessings we enjoy today, including many of our grandparents.

Why is Remembrance Day continuously important? Because, one day in the not so distant future all those who lived through, and fought these wars will be dead. All those who lived through the Holocaust will be gone. All those who lived through Nazi Germany will be gone. All those who landed in Normandy will be gone, and all we will have is stories, pictures, film and memories. All we will have is the will to remember. All we will have is a forced stop and listen, a SELAH of Remembrance. And that is what this day is about.  

Two Great Books!

I just got off the phone with a mother whose child is dating a real thinker, and a skeptic. She regretted that he did not attend my lasted sermon series Skeptics Forum (available online or Podcast) where I covered the following questions:

1. Does God Exist?

2. Can There Be Just One True Religion?

3. Has Science Disproved Christianity?

4. Why Would a Good God Allow Evil and Suffering?

5. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

This mothers said "I want to buy him a book or two for Christmas (he said he would be open to it), what should I buy him?" I did not even have to hesitate. The two books I would most highly recommend to anyone who is seeking answers to difficult questions of faith are the two best books I have read this year, and I commend them both to you as you think about what to read or buy next.

First, Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity? This is the most well argued, articulate, relevant book I have read in a long time. It explores philosophy, theology, science, and history in an engaging way that presents Christianity as a legitimate world view, even in an age of skepticism.

The book tackles arguments from science and philosophy about why belief in God, is legitimate and reasonable. A great read to strengthen your faith, and challenge your inner skeptic.

Secondly is the beautifully written The Reason for God by one of the great preachers and church planters alive today, Timothy Keller; the man that Newsweek called "a C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century."

This book is written in the spirit of Mere Christianity with updated and (post)modern ways of explanation. It is extremely accessible and pastoral in its approach to questions about Hell, the existence of God, science, suffering, and the Bible. This book comes out of Keller's experience of pastoring in Manhattan for twenty years and the questions, struggles of many in that city in regard to faith, life, Christianity and reason.

I would commend these books to anyone who is interested in Christianity, or interested in strengthening their faith in the way that Scripture exhorts us to: "always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3.15).

The Bible in a Minute

King Solomon's Mine Found?

WASHINGTON — Legend has it that King Solomon's mines held a treasure of gold and diamonds, but archeologists say the real mines may have supplied the ancient king with copper.

Researchers led by Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego, and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, discovered a copper-production center in southern Jordan that dates to the 10th century B.C., the time of Solomon's reign.

The discovery occurred at Khirbat en-Nahas, which means “ruins of copper” in Arabic. Located south of the Dead Sea, the region was known in the Old Testament as Edom.

Research at the site in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that metalworking began there in the 7th century B.C., long after Solomon.

Industrial copper slag mound excavated at Khirbat en-Nahas with a building and layers above it dating to the mid-9th century B.C. and its deposits dating to the 10th century B.C. (Thomas Levy, UC San Diego)

But Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar dug deeper and were able to date materials such as seeds and sticks to the 10th century B.C.

“We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us,” Dr. Levy said in a statement. “But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible.”

Their findings are reported in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Christian Martyrdom: Happening Now

"45 million Christians were martyred in the twentieth century."
-- Oxford's World Christian Encyclopedia.

This week I got an email from someone I know in the Muslim world who reported something that the NY Times, almost exclusively, reported, because the mainstream media is busy with other things. There is a kind of genocide that is happening in India right now (a beautiful country that I visited two summers ago). There is presently a kind of religious genocide happening to our Christian brothers and sisters there. Here is the link.

Christians are forced to renounce their faith in exchange for safety, or else face marytrdom. This has been going on for weeks in India. This ought to be stunning to us since India is the world's largest democracy and officially a tolerant secular state. Hindus make up the majority of citizens in India, whilst Christians are only about 2% of the population or so.

The eastern state of Orissa, "in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze."

The private email I got speaks of dozens of Christians tribes being slaughtered.

"In a nearby Catholic orphanage, the mob locked up a Priest and a computer teacher in a house and burned them to death. Many believers have been killed and hacked into pieces and left on the road.... even women and children."

"More than 5000 Christian families have had their homes burned or destroyed. They have fled into the jungles and are living in great fear waiting for the authorities to bring about peace. But so far, no peace is foreseen."

"This will continue for another 10 days.... supposedly the 14 day mourning period for the slain Hindu priest. Many more Christians will die and their houses destroyed."

We really do find it hard to connect with this as Western Christians whose biggest problems revolve around not being able to build 20 million dollar add ons to our massive church structures, and people not making us the center of attention and serving my needs. But we must try to reflect on these things. We must allow our hearts to break, to cry out on behalf of these amazingly beautiful people.

One potent and deep Scripture comes to mind when I think of these people facing persecution today, as I sit in my heated office complaining about my cough-due-to-cold.

Describing men and women in the past who suffered martyrdom for their faith, the writer of Hebrews says:

"They were stoned, sawn in two, put to death with the sword, being destitute, afflicted people of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11.37-38).

That last line is important. People who get killed who remain faithful to Jesus, Scripture is saying, are more valuable then the world could ever understand. The world in all of its confusion, upside down values, and systems of thought and practice. It is no longer worthy to host the kinds of people God decided to take through martyrdom. They are that loved by God and valuable in his sight.

Discipleship of the Mind

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.
(Mark 12.30)

I have always felt a calling to it, but I never had a name for it before. I do now. Discipleship of the Mind. I have always felt that this was my passion; my role within the church. Some people are called to disciple the heart, others the soul, still others the strength. My passion is to disciple the mind. Not as a separate reality from the rest, it is all connected of course.

Why does the discipleship of the mind matter? Well, because ultimately our behavioral patterns follow our thinking patterns -- we do what we think. So, we may mourn the destructive patterns that our family and friends are living in, and we may try to help them stop acting that way, but the reality is, Scripture says, they need a renewal. A renewal of what? A renewal of the mind. That is the only way they will be transformed. Paul says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12.2).

Often people look at this in the context of people who are already Christians. "Yes, teach Christians the basics of the Bible, and theology -- that's important" they may say.
They would agree with A.W. Tozer, as I would that

The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most important fact about any person is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…That our concept of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance… A right conception of God is basic not only to theology but to practical Christian living… I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to wrong thinking about God.

But I want to push things further than that. I want to propose that discipleship of the mind is something we need to focus on as a point of our mission, our evangelism -- its is central to how the gospel impacts and changes a people. This is why, when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he said that the disciples were to do two things as they went: baptize and teach (Matthew 28.16-20). According to Jesus, teaching people was part of the mission. You must teach people how to think, and what to think. Think about what? Everything: God, Humanity, Sin, Death, Life, Salvation, Origins, Meaning, Value, Destiny -- this is about constructing a worldview for people.

1980, Charles Malik came to speak at Wheaton College about evangelism, at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He said this:

At the heart of all the problems facing Western civilization—the manifold perversions of personal character; problems of the family; problems of economics and politics; problems of the media; problems affecting the school itself and the church itself—at the heart of the crisis in Western civilization lies the state of the mind… The true the task of the evangelical world is not only to win souls, for if you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed it may turn out that you have actually lost the world.

Our message to those outside the church is that the gospel is not about one aspect of your lives (some private corner of your heart, in some sentimental way), no, the gospel offers you a new Mind -- a different way to view everything!

As Ravi Zacharias often says: “God not only changes what we do, he changes what we want to do.”

There is so much more to say... but this is enough for now.

Television & Elections: Has the One Destroyed the Other?

It's election time in both Canada and the U.S. and that means attacks ads, political commercials and televised debates. I have heard so much discussion lately around Harper's knit-sweaters, Dion's glasses (not to mention Palin's), and how the TV hurts and helps both candidates in the U.S. Every night when my wife turns on Showbiz Tonight there is a segment, a long segment, called the Palin Factor--which talks about her latest clothes, hair-do and glass. When I hear the discourse of our culture revolving around such things it makes me laugh, and then it makes me kind of sad, and then scared pitless. During these times I always think back to a book I read years ago, which though published in 1984, before the invention of the Internet, still carries with it a great reminder to our culture about the ramifications of having our public discourse--whether it be about politics, religion or news--centered around such trivial things.

The book is Neil Postman's (1931-2003) celebrated and oft-quoted book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business wherein he argues that political philosophy cannot (and thus should not) be done on television. "Its form" he says "works against the content." Here are four points he makes. And I do not make these points in regard to one candidate over another (in either country)--because one could argue that television has helped and hurt all candidates.

First he says "Because we live in an image-centered culture it would appear that fat people are now effectively excluded from running for high profile office. Probably bald people as well. Indeed we may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control... Someone like our twenty-seventh President, the multi-chinned, three-hundred pound William Howard Taft, couldn't be put forward as a presidential candidate in today's world. In reality the shape of a mans body is largely irrelevant to the shape of his ideas. But it is quite relevant on television. Television gives us a conversation in images not words."

Secondly he says "Public figures were known largely by their written words, for example, not by their looks or even their oratory. It is quite likely that most of the first fifteen presidents of the United States would not have been recognizable had they passed by the average citizen in the street... To think about these men was to think about what they had written, to judge them by their public positions, their arguments, their knowledge. Think of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham or Albert Einstein what will likely come to your mind is an image, a picture of a face. Of words, almost nothing will come to mind. This is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture."

Thirdly, he says in our move away from a print-based epistemology to an image-based epistemology much has been lost: "Under the governance of the printing press, discourse in America was generally coherent, serious and rational; but under the governance of television, it has become shriveled and absurd.... This shift in epistemology has had grave consequences for public life; we are getting sillier by the minute."

Postman believed that this leads to a kind of cultural death: "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when a people become an audience, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility."

Fourthly, he makes a suggestion about political commercials: "I am particularly fond of John Lindsay's suggestions that political commercials be banned from television as we now ban cigarette and liquor commercials. I would gladly testify before the Federal Communications Commission as to the manifold merits of this excellent idea. To those who would say such a ban is a clear violation of the First Amendment I would offer a compromise: Require all political commercials to be preceded by a short statement to the effect that common sense has determined that watching political commercials is hazardous to the intellectual health of the community...Television serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse--new, politics, science, education, religion--and turns them into entertainments packages. We would all be better off if television got worse not better. "The A-Team" and "Cheers" are no threat to our public health. "60 Minutes," "Eye-Witness News" and "Sesame Street" are."

The reality is that we are an image-driven culture at every level -- the question is: has this helped us or hurt us in regard to the most important parts of our civilization?

Its Not Death to Die

Pastor Terry Stauffer's (Edson, Alberta) daughter was murdered this past week. I went on his blog and read his response to this terrible event (see here).

Interestingly enough (in relation to my last blog entry about the importance of John Piper, he said this: John Piper (and others) stress the need for Christians to build a foundation in good theology in preparation for suffering, for suffering will indeed come. Juanita and I have lived an easy life in so many ways - blessed with healthy children, a great church and a sweet marriage. God was good then, and God is good now.

As I prepare this week to speak to the deep and meaningful question of evil and suffering in the world this Sunday, I pray that God will keep realities such as this before me. I agree with Terry; the question that is raised in the midst of a world such as this is about God's goodness. Which is why Terry's only hope is to say it outright: God is good...God is good -- it is this very thing that is brought into question at times like this.

A foundation of good theology, he said, is necessary. Such a good perspective to have. Theology is the stuff of life, it is not something other than life, something academics do so they don't have to work real jobs, something pastors do to pass the time -- theology sets up how you deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly in life. That is partly why it is important -- a proper view of God, Ourselves, and the World is everything including practical!

Terry shared the lyics to a meaningful song that has helped his family the last couple days, from a worship album they bought a short time ago. These are the lyrics - they are deep with meaning and put into perspective that those who have faith in Christ weep, and mourn, but not like those who have no hope -- we know that we move on to meet with Jesus forever and that gives our lives, not to mention our deaths, meaning at every level.

It Is Not Death to Die
It is not death to die
To leave this weary road
And join the saints who dwell on high
Who’ve found their home with God

It is not death to close
The eyes long dimmed by tears
And wake in joy before Your throne
Delivered from our fears

O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just

It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore

O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

This song affirms that the Christian story is the greatest offer of hope that any worldview has to offer. It is not ultimately about becoming a spirit-being and floating around in heaven for ever. It is about having our humanness restored in the reality of the Resurrection. It is true, and glorious, that we go and be with God in spirit for a time, when we die, as we await the dawning and birth of the New Creation. Paul says that when we are away from the body we will be "at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5.8). My friends mother is in the process of dying right before her eyes right now. She said she had a conversation with Jesus the other day about whether she was ready to come home. People are often skeptical about things like that, saying it must be the Morphine -- but I strongly disagree; I think God speaks to us even more intimately in our sufferings. As C.S. Lewis once said, suffering is God's megaphone to get our attention. We hear him most clearly in the midst of it.

But this going to be with the Lord in spirit for a time, while glorious, is not the End. There is life after " life after death." There is a second phase: Resurrection. The Bible says "The Lord Jesus will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory" (Philippians 3.20-21). Again, "We shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15.51-52). Where will we live? The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, tells us: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth...coming down out of heaven from God" (Revelation 21.1-2). Yes, the final state will be thoroughly physical. We will be with God in a way never experienced before, even by Adam and Eve in Eden. It will be more glorious than that.

That is the hope. New Life, in a New Creation. And the promise that comes next is one of the most important promises in all of history, that I hold on to closely: "and He shall wipe every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any death; there shall be no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain..." (Revelation 21.4).

Amen.

Why I Love John Piper (By Mark Clark...& Mark Driscoll)

This week my wife and I went through a grueling Church Planting Boot Camp which tested us at every level to see if others would confirm our calling to church planting, in unity with our present church. Two people that have inspired me (and thousands of other young pastors) in relation to church planting are Mark Driscoll (Marshill Church, Seattle) and John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church).

For years I have been inspired and learned from John Piper as a preacher. He is the most passionate preacher that I know of -- and is one of the best in the world. Recently I ran across Pastor Mark Driscoll's blog, who knows him well, which spoke of this very thing. Here it is. For an interview Driscoll did with Piper see here.

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Soon I (Mark Driscoll) will be heading out to speak at a Desiring God Conference for Dr. John Piper. He has asked me to speak on Christ, controversy, and cutting remarks, or something like that. Basically, the gist is that no matter what I say, the critics who forget the whole plank-speck thing Jesus talked about will make every effort to turn it into controversy with their cutting remarks. Should be fun.

Admittedly, the topic is not my first choice because it’s enough rope from which to either swing or hang depending upon how the session goes. But I took the invitation in large part to get some hang time with Dr. John Piper. To be honest, he’s even better off the stage than he is on. I mean that in no disrespectful way because he is one of the greatest preachers on the planet and I think he could hold my attention reading the phone book. But as a man off the stage over a meal when the crowds are gone and the microphones are off, I have found him to be even more enjoyable, encouraging, helpful, passionate, and compelling. As an example, we recently posted a long interview I did with him at the Resurgence and in it he was so genuine and honest that at points the interview is somewhat raw. I sent him the finished interview to get his permission before posting it out of respect, and true to form he edited nothing out. So, out of love for a man I consider a great mentor and friend, I thought it would be fun to share four reasons why I truly and deeply appreciate John Piper, before I head out to speak at his conference.

1. He is the most passionate guy I think I’ve ever met.

Of course, he is first and foremost passionate for the glory of God. But he is pretty much passionate about everything. For example, the first time we had him preach at Mars Hill Church the nuts we had out were unsalted. I learned that he is passionate about salted nuts.

2. He does not seem to really care about his approval ratings.

He does not own a television, and I would bet he spends less time checking what people say about him through Technorati and Google than he does watching television.

3. He has a father’s heart.

Unlike so many older men who are threatened by, competitive with, or critical of young men, I have repeatedly seen Dr. Piper have a father’s heart to encourage, exhort, and empower young men. The few times we’ve been able to sit down together have been incredibly transforming. On a few occasions he has been gracious enough to sit down with the young church planters in our Acts 29 Network with no microphones and very honestly answer the painful questions about life, ministry, and family. In those moments, from his heart and off the cuff comes pure gold that my brothers in Acts 29 still talk about. Especially noteworthy was the question from Jonathan McIntosh at The Journey Church in St. Louis, who asked what he would have to offer as final wisdom to young pastors. Piper buried his face in his hands to think and pray for a few minutes while the rest of us held our breath and waited. He then lifted his head and forcefully encouraged us to gouge out our eyes before looking at a woman lustfully (other than desiring our wives, of course) and chop off our hand before touching a woman other than our wife. Personally, I will never forget the time he told us about holding his stillborn grandchild around Christmastime as tears rolled down his face, describing how he prayed for God to resurrect the baby from death. As I looked around the room I saw dozens of young pastors, myself included, fighting back buckets of tears.

4. By not trying to be cool . . . he’s cool.

I cannot confirm it, but I think Dr. Piper may only have one jacket. I see him preach in it all the time and it’s a tweed coat with more than a few years of faithful service. I also think he may own one belt because I’ve only ever seen one. He drives a simple car, lives a simple life, does not have a tattoo (at least that I’ve seen), does not skateboard, and likes to read stuff by dead guys a lot. But by trying to just be himself rather than being cool, he has curiously become cool because he’s about Christ and that’s always cool.

Richmond Jones and the Hidden Kingdom

This is my latest film: Richmond Jones and the Hidden Kingdom

It is a project for a school that my friend Jason (Richmond Jones) teaches at, and goes along with a series of messages that he is doing at the school about seeking the kingdom of God.

Part II will be "written" and shot soon. Jason and his son Eli (the violent hunter) did a great job. And look for me in a stellar black and white cameo as well -- I'm kind of like Hitchcock like that.

Enjoy!

The Dumbest Generation & C.S. Lewis

On my birthday (August 15) I did what I love to do. I went to the bookstore and spent time browsing. I bought a book called "The Dumbest Generation". It is unfortunately about my generation--the generation raised on TV, the generation who was introduced to Internet in our teen years, the generation with by far the most knowledge at our fingertips then any generation in history, but which does not show that we any smarter or better off than previous generations. The book explores the perplexing question of how this could possibly be the case.

The author (Mark Bauerlein) points out study after study that shows my generation (which watches an average of 5 1/2 hours of television per day!) does not know basic knowledge such as the significance of 1776 (its an American book), who the British Priminister (its Gordon Brown, by the way) and who made the first electric light-bulb (I am not going to help you with this one).

Bauerlein states the paradox this way:

We have entered the Information Age, traveled the Information Superhighway, spawned a Knowledge Economy, undergone the Digital Revolution, converted manual workers into knowledge workers, and promoted a Creative Class and we anticipate a Conceptual Age to be. However overhyped those grand social metaphors, they signify a rising premium on knowledge...a knowledge economy. Any yet while teens and young adults have absorbed digital tools into their lives young [people] today are no more learned and skillful than their predecessors, no more knowledgeable, fluent, up-to-date, or inquisitive, except in the materials of youth culture. They don't know any more history or civics, economics or science, literature or current events. They also read less on their own. (Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation, [New York: Penguin Books, 2008], 8-9).

Much could be said about how scary all of this is. I think his point about youth culture is important. Our generation does know and do more about this specific reality, which, though some may argue against this, I can categorically say, is, in the large scheme of things, less important to know about, and at times even destructive to our thinking, living and acting.

Youth culture is at times culture created to be consumed at a mass scale and thus shoots for the lowest common denominator. Think of movies directed to this audience: poo jokes, penis jokes, more poo jokes; music videos: half-naked girls dancing in the desert, cut to boat no one can afford, party scene, chains, watches; and these are the moguls which then want to shape voting (Remember P. Diddy's "Vote or Die") world views. I am all for artist being political and offering prophetic critique to a culture that has lost its way, but not artist that convey such ridiculousness on a day to day basis.

To conclude my thoughts on this I though I would hold up as an example of what I am talking about an extreme example of brilliance, but I am not sure that he was a complete anomaly in his time. C.S. Lewis. Here is an excerpt from a letter that he wrote to his best friend when he was 17-year-old:

12 October 1915

"You ask me how I spend my time, and though I am more interested in thoughts and feelings, we’ll come down to facts. I am awakened up in the morning by Kirk splashing in his bath, about 20 minutes after which I get up myself and come down. After breakfast & a short walk we start work on Thucydides a desperately dull and tedious Greek historian (I daresay tho’, you’d find him interesting) and on Homer whom I worship. After quarter of an hour’s rest we go on with Tacitus till lunch at 1.

I am then free till tea at 4.30: of course I am always anxious at this meal to see if Mrs K. is out, for Kirk never takes it. If she is I lounge in an arm chair with my book by the fire, reading over a leisurely and bountiful meal. If she’s in, or worse still has ’some people’ to tea, it means sitting on a right angled chair and sipping a meagre allowance of tea and making intelligent remarks about the war, the parish and the shortcomings of everyones servants. At 5, we do Plato and Horace, who are both charming, till supper at 7.30, after which comes German and French till about 9. Then I am free to go to bed whenever I like which is usually about 10.20.

As soon as my bed room door is shut I get into my dressing gown, draw up a chair to my table and produce, like Louis Moore, note book and pencil. Here I write up my diary for the day, and then turning to the other end of the book devote myself to poetry, either new stuff or polishing the old. If I am not in the mood for that I draw faces and hands and feet etc for practice. This is the best part of the day of course, and I am usually in a very happy frame of mind by the time I slip into bed.

So glad you too like the ‘Faerie Queen’, isn’t it great? I have been reading a horrible book of Jack London’s called ‘The Jacket’. If you come across [it] anywhere, don’t read it." (The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963) , ed Walter Hooper (NY: Collier Books, 1979), pp. 84-86.

This, I hope the experience of more and more young people, not to mention my own children, as we move forward in our world. My hope is they work to bring the healing power of Jesus to a lost and hurting people. That by saturating themselves in Scripture, prayer, Christian community and even by expanding their mind by reading good cultural expressions that they would "appear as lights in the world to a crooked and perverse generation" (Philippians 2.15).