Why Plant Churches?

If you are interested in following the development of the church campus we are starting in South Surrey we have started a blog that I will update - the site is http://southsurreychurchcampus.blogspot.com/ 

It includes community news links, and church planting resources as well. Below is the latest article I have written, which comes from the strategic plan the Church Planting Development Team put together in early 2008.

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The following is a list of the 6 reasons[1] that SDBC’s leadership (Pastors, Directors and Elders) decided to make church planting a central part of The Mission of our church in January 2008.

It is Biblical: In the Great Commission Jesus lists several tasks relating to congregations: going, baptizing, and teaching. These are the ways, Jesus says, that the church is going to make disciples. The “earliest church believed they were fulfilling the Great Commission by planting new congregations. The Great Commission calls us to evangelize and to congregationalize.”[2] Also, the church in Antioch committed itself to sending leaders from their congregation to plant churches in other geographic areas (Acts 13-14). This is why church planting authority Ed Stetzer says “The New Testament points to the fact that new churches and church planting are direct and inevitable consequences of believer’s involvement in witnessing and proclamation.”

To reach the lost: Studies show that “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.”[3] It has been shown that established churches make greater progress in kingdom evangelism by initiating new daughter churches. “New churches are more effective than large churches, particularly in evangelism. On a per-capita basis, new churches win more people to Christ than established churches.”

Bruce McNichol explains the findings of his research in Interest Magazine:

-       Churches under three years of age win an average of ten people to Christ per year for every one hundred church members.

-       Churches three to fifteen years of age win an average of five people per year for every one hundred church members.

-       Church over fifteen years of age win an average of three people per year for every one hundred church members.[4] 

Tim Keller, lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, known all over North America as an inspiring model of a church that plants churches, says “no single church, no matter how large and active, can all by itself change an entire area. We must saturate areas with gospel-centered new churches. This is the only way to truly insure the transformation of our cities that we so much desire.”[5]

To develop new leaders: Like Jesus developed the twelve and like Paul developed Timothy, Titus and other Elders and Pastors, new churches have the opportunity to develop people who would not otherwise have stepped up to lead, serve or minister because those roles are already filled.[6] This helps SDBC to accomplish one of our other main goals which central to The Mission: to train and develop new leaders for the Church within Canada. Central to this is the idea that we train and send more and more people to plant churches in our immediate area and beyond, our “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1.8) – a paradigmatic text for both Acts and for the church in general. Our vision to be an Antioch church, which is not afraid to send our best (Paul and Barnabas).

 To grow the Kingdom of God:  Ed Stetzer says, “A maturing kingdom awareness is more important than a local church mentality…Leaders who are unwilling to make organizational sacrifices for the benefit of the kingdom become stunted in both growth and in understanding God’s larger purpose.” This kingdom mentality has always been central to SDBC, and is seen in our global mission focus; this will help us direct those efforts toward a local mission focus. This is why one of the visions of the book Discipling Our Nation: Equipping the Canadian Church for its Mission, published by Outreach Canada, is that each local church plants “at least two daughter churches: first to replace itself and second to extend the Kingdom.”[7] There is great wisdom is such vision for the local church.

Growth and Health of SDBC: Studies show that Mother Churches often experience a surge of energy and excitement from the existing congregation when they plant a church because they see God’s people sacrificing and multiplying and because they are seeing the kingdom grow. Tim Keller points out that planting new churches is “perhaps the best way to renew and re-vitalize older churches and enhance all ministries.” He says, “The mother church usually experiences a surge of high-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members. There is usually an increase in numbers and confidence.”[8]

 Churches who have church planting as part of their DNA attract leaders. There is a church in Vancouver which began about 4 years ago with 20 or so people which always had church planting at its heart. It is now over 600 people, and there are multiple church planters who intern at the church to be sent out. This church also hosts a gathering of church planters once a month for teaching, equipping and prayer. 

 Part of that growth and health comes back to the priority of leaving a lasting legacy: Our lead Pastor (Paul Johnson) often says that planting new churches will “help our church have a legacy long after we are dead and gone. A hundred years from now there could be churches existing all over BC because of our efforts.” We can be a part of stamping Canada and reaching beyond the geographic boundaries of where our local churches exist.

To increase the number of evangelical, Gospel-centered churches: In an age of bad doctrine, and theological challenges to the historic Christian faith, our denomination (Fellowship Baptist), and our church specifically, need’s to extend its influence. We are responsible for what we do with who and what we have, and cannot assume that other churches are preaching the Gospel and doing Gospel-centered ministry.

 This is the aforementioned reasons The Fellowship now has church multiplication as a top priority. The director of the Fellowship, Dr. Jon Kaiser said in his 2007 address to the Fellowship: “What is the best contribution we can make? I believe each region should see it’s calling as growing and multiplying healthy churches. We should be involved in leadership development, community outreach, and church multiplication.” The more churches that carry the gospel into different areas the better. This is why it is necessary that “the local church DNA comes to believe that every church should plant churches.”[9] In this sense we can set the tone and inspire many other churches in The Fellowship to follow our lead as we follow the lead of Dr. Kaiser and others.

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[1] More reasons can be explored in Paul Beker and Mark Williams, The Dynamic Daughter Church Planting Handbook.

[2] Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, 33.

[3] C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for Greater Harvest, 11. See also Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3: “New Churches are by far the best way to reach (1) new generations, (2) new residents, and (3) new people groups. Studies show that newer churches attract new groups about 6-10 times better and faster then older, established churches do.”

[4] Cited in Aubrey Malphrus, Planting Growing Churches for the 21^st Century, 44.

[5] Tim Keller, http://www.redeemer2.com/rupc/rupc/index.cfm.           

[6] See Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches, 322; Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3.

[7] Murray Moerman, “Discipling Canada and the Nations” in Murray Moerman ed., Discipling Our Nation: Equipping the Canadian Church for its Mission, 7; see also Murray Moerman and Lorne Hunter, “Saturation Church Planting: Current Needs & Recent Progress,” 20: “Every church, in fact, must contribute to these emerging church planting movements by planting at least two new congregations while it is able” one to replace itself, because, like humans, no congregation lives forever, and a second to extend the Kingdom” (14). He goes on to point out that at the end of 2003 evangelical churches in Canada existed at the ration of 1 for every 3, 189 Canadians.

[8] Tim Keller, Advancing the Gospel into the 21^st Century, 3: “I know of a small congregation in our area who had filled 100 seats twice to max 4 years in a row. Finally they sent 50 people out to a new town to form a new church. Just two years later there were 350 people coming to the daughter church and the mother church had filled its seats back up in three weeks.

[9] Murray Moerman and Lorne Hunter, “Saturation Church Planting: Current Needs & Recent Progress,” 17. 

DSF Live - Internet Stream

Many people are connected to the SDBC/DSF community around the world via media such as Podcasts and internet downloads - as many as 6,000 downloads a year for DSF sermons alone! As a gift to whoever is interested in it, we are now steaming DSF live for the benefit of those who can't join us on a Sunday night in Delta. Both those who are not a part of our church community and those who are but who are in far off in places like the Northwest Territories, Ontario, Chile, Bolivia, Germany, Wisconsin, and beyond. 

The DSF service (every Sunday night at 7pm) will be live over the internet at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/dsf-stream - please join us! By God's grace we use this medium in the spirit of 1 Cor. 9 - that we would use all means necessary to reach as many people as possible with the gospel of Jesus.

 

The Regular Joe Missionary

How do we cultivate Christian communities that see themselves as full-time missionaries where ever God has placed people? We have a problem in the Western church - our people do not view themselves as missionaries. This must change. A flurry of books in the last decade have been sounding the alarm about this trying to get church leaders to emphasize the need to cultivate a missionary-spirit in their people but is it helping?

I am not someone, as some people do, who sees "programs" as always a bad word but we do tend to rely to heavily on them as churches - they become the go to plan when it feels like we aren't "doing enough" as the church. But of course the reason we don't feel like we are doing enough is because often we are not seeing life transformation or conversions among us thus we need to keep the Christians we have busy and feeling like things are happening. Is the sin here a lack of trust in God that if we strip the church down to a few simple things we will loose people? Maybe.

Here is the shift I am thoroughly convinced needs to happen in the church and the present difficult situation we find ourselves in: idolatry - a good thing (Christian ministry) has become an ultimate thing (what we get our value and significance from). The problem that stems from this idol is that the Christians in the church are staying way to busy doing Christian ministry and being together and not enough (if any!) time with the unchurched. We are not hanging out with our non-Christians family and friends to show them the love of God in Jesus. We are not spending time in our communities, instead we create Christian subcultures that keep us from the culture (both the good and bad) among us.

This is a functional rejection of something central to Christian life and practice: incarnational ministry. The word Incarnation is the word to describe God becoming human in Jesus - coming to us in all our sin and ridiculousness - to love us, to call us out, to live among us, die in our place for the forgiveness of sins and rise again to save us. He became one of us - "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1.14). As C.S. Lewis said it would be like becoming a crab or slug for us. Why? Because we are more than that - we are higher beings. Such is the scandal. Do we live this out in our lives? Do we spend enough time bringing the church to the world. Living out our calling among the nations - being missional in every way? Or are we spending our time in Christian communities exclusively? Doing Christian ministry, staying busy ministering to the already saved? 

One way we cultivate this in our Christian communities is to highlight, talk about/to and emphasize not only the lives of super saints like formal "full-time missionaries" to other cultures and countries but to focus on the lives and mission of the regular Joe - people in their everyday lives; nurses, teachers, business owners, pipe-fitters - the followers of Jesus who are living out their faith in the marketplace (the Agora; Acts 17). We must learn how to tell their stories so people stop waiting to "do missions" or to "begin ministry" at some point in their lives - it one way to show that such lives and mission is actually worthwhile. One of my teachers, and more importantly a respected missiologist around the world, Charles Ringma, in his book Catch the Wind, says this:

Why is not thought given to establish what church members are already doing in their neighborhood and places of work. No attempt is made, for example, to identify the medical practitioner who has changed the approach to patients by providing counseling and practical support rather than just curative care. No attempt is made to identify the local public official in the congregation who is tackling certain important quality of life social issues in the community. No attempt is made tp support the lady who is conducting an informal neighborhood Bible study group. No attempt is made to support prayerfully the teacher who has just started work in an inner-city school with many pupils from broken families. And no attempt is made to see one family's care for their disabled child as a ministry worthy of the church's support of prayers.

The mission is where God has you be it China, or an office in Vancouver or New York or even raising a family - the church must get that reaching their friends, family in their local places of life is their mission - it is their Jerusalem (Acts 1.8), their immediate place of influence and if they are not spending time in the places of normal life where regular people hang out, spend time and who are distant from Jesus than we will never be effective in our mission. 

We must organize church so that we don't suck up all our people's time doing "ministry" that takes people away from these places, people and experiences - we have been sent on to reach as many as possible with the gospel of Jesus (1 Cor. 9)

The Gospel: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing (Part 2)

D. A. Carson gave the first plenary address to the Gospel Coalition conference under the rubric, “What is the Gospel?” This is a summary outline of his talk, which is available online here:

http://www.theresurgence.com/don_carson_2007-05-23_audio_what_is_the_gospel

Mistaken approaches to the Gospel. The Gospel is not:

1. A narrow set of teachings about Jesus, his death and resurrection that “tip people into the kingdom,” after which theology and other things come later.
2. The first and second great commandments (Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself.) They are central, but they’re not the Gospel.
3. The ethical teaching of Jesus. But abstracted from his passion and resurrection rests on two mistakes:
   • In the first century there was not the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, etc. It was “The Gospel” according to Matthew, “The Gospel,” according to Mark. One gospel, various perspectives.
   • Studying Jesus’s teaching while making the cross peripheral reduces the gospel to mere obedience and duty. This is catastrophic.

   
   4. Assuming the gospel while concentrating on other issues:marriage, theology, whatever.Note that people are most likely to learn what the teacher is excited about. If the gospel is merely assumed while relatively peripheral issues ignite our passion, we will teach a new generation to downplay the gospel and focus on the periphery, be those matters of evangelism, justice, confronting Islam, or what have you.“It’s easy to sound prophetic from the margins, but harder to be prophetic from the center.”

The gospel by which you are saved is bound up in the fact that Christ died for our sins, was buried, raised on the third day and appeared to many people - the apostles and others.

Eight summarizing words. The Gospel is:

1. Christological.
   • Not a bland theism or general pantheism.
     
   • Only Jesus is the name by which we can be saved. Jesus alone reconciles us to God.
   • “The gospel is not preached if Christ is not preached,” but not just the person of Christ, but his atoning death and resurrection.
2. Theological.
   • God raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
   • God’s purpose was for Christ to die and rise, not mere death, but that he died for our sins,
     and rose for our justification
     
   • God’s wrath against sin. Our sin problem is personal. God pronounces the sentence of death against sin.
   • God is the one whom we have offended, who must be appeased. And what makes God most angry is idolatry, the “de-godding” of God, the putting of something else in God’s place. God is still jealous. Repentance is necessary because the coming of the king brings judgment as well as blessing.
3. Biblical. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised according to the Scriptures.
4. Apostolic. Listen to the sequence of pronouns Paul uses in 1Cor 15:11 “Whether it was I (an apostle) or they (the apostles) this is what we (the apostles) preach, and this is what you believed. I, we, they, you. This Gospel is apostolic (Carson credits J.R.W. Stott for this sequence of pronouns)
5. Historical.
   • 1Cor 15 specifies both Jesus’s burial (death) and resurrection. Jesus’s death and resurrection are tied together in history. Any approach that attempts to pit them against one another is silly.
   • The manner in which we access the events of Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection is the same as we have with any historical event: the remains and writings of those who were there. This is why the matter of being witnesses was so important.
   • The central Christian claims are irreducibly historical.Unlike all other religions, the historical uniqueness of Christ is non-negotiable, not just the historicity of the man Jesus, but the historical claims of his death for our sins, his burial and resurrection. God does not give a revelation to Jesus which Jesus passes on, rather Jesus is the revelation of God. The revelation cannot be separated from Christ. To attempt to do so is incoherent. This is a historical revelation, and there are historical events that cannot be separated, chiefly his death for our sins, burial and resurrection. These are truths of history.
   • The word “historical” is sometimes slippery. Some think that it means those events which have causes that are located only in natural things. Such a definition excludes the miraculous. We insist that historical means events that took place in history, whether from natural causes or through God’s supernatural intervention in power, operating in history.
6. Personal. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not merely historical events, or merely theological precepts. They set forth a way of personal salvation. Paul says this is the gospel which you received and on
   which you take your stand. This is not an abstract. It is personal.
7. Universal. The gospel is a comprehensive vision of a new humanity drawn from every tribe and nation. It is not universal in that it includes everyone without exception; but it is universal in the sense that it is for all ethnic and other groups.
8. Eschatological. Some of the blessings Christians receive are blessings of the last day brought into our time. Among these are justification – we are justified (fait accompli) and we will be justified. We look forward
   to an eschatological fulfillment of the transformation that has already begun in us. We cannot focus only on the
   blessings those who are in Christ enjoy in this age, but there are greater fulfillments yet to come.

Five clarifying sentences

1. This gospel is normally disseminated in proclamation (preaching, heraldic ministry). The good news must be
   announced, heralded, explained.
2. This gospel is fruitfully received in authentic, persevering faith, faith that continues and brings forth results.
3. This gospel is properly disclosed in a context of personal self-humiliation. People respond to it by becoming aware of their own insufficiency and helplessness. “I am not what I want to be, nor what I ought to be, nor what I will be, but by the grace of God I am what I am.” John Newton. Humility. Gratitude. Dependence on Christ, contrition – these
   are the attitudes of the truly converted. “Proud Christian” is an unthinkable oxymoron.
4. This gospel is rightly asserted to be the confession of the whole church. Of course what the whole church, or all the churches are doing, is not necessarily right. Otherwise there would be no need for an Athanasius or a Luther. Hidebound tradition is not the gospel. But also be suspicious of churches who proudly flaunt how different they are from what has gone before.
5. This gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the king. All of God’s sovereignty is mediated through kind Jesus: All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth… the name that is above every name… he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. There is still resistance, but one day the final enemy, death itself, will die, and God will be all in all. Therefore, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the Lord, knowing that your work for him is not in vain.

One evocative summary: The gospel is not exclusively cognitive. It is also affective and active. The word of the cross is not only God’s wisdom which the world considers folly, but it is God’s power, which the word considers weakness. This gospel transforms us – not by attempting to abstract social principles from the gospel, not by imposing new levels of rules, still less by focus on the periphery in the vain attempt to sound prophetic, but precisely by preaching and teaching the blessed gospel of our glorious redeemer.

Catching up with Jesus: South Surrey

God has guided myself and Erin (my wife) to many different places in life - growing up in Ajax Ontario, moving out to Vancouver BC in 2004 to do a Masters degree at Regent College - at that time I started interning at South Delta Baptist Church - during my time in the awesome community I have met some of the most amazing, gifted and wonderful people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

I have had the pleasure to serve the people of SDBC as pastor: preaching, teaching, shepherding, leading and living side by side with them through some amazing and at times challenging years. The church has now entered a new phase which has brought with it a new phase for most people who work at the church - with the arrival of our new lead pastor Paul Johnson God brought a capacity for a new vision - which includes, among other great and

 extremely faith-based ventures, church planting. 

After much prayer, and conversation with friends, fellow staff and members of the SDBC church family, Erin and I have step out in faith toward the next phase God has for us as a missionary couple serving Jesus in the world - that I would lead a church campus in South Surrey BC, a town 25 minutes drive away from the main campus of SDBC (Tsawwassen) - The church leadership and members of the congregation have been developing a plan over the last year (which included a team to develop the plan and proposal for the campus, Church Planting Assessment that Erin and I went through in September) that was rolled out to the larger church community three weeks ago which had amazing support from the congregation! 

That was Erin and I's last major thing to wait for before moving out to South Surrey - as missionaries to a culture it is important that pastors and church planters live in the community they are shepherding and trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus - and it is important to live in the community for as long as possible before one thinks about launching a campus there - for

 me this was a non-negotiable form the start - something you don't even think about - and as much as Erin and I love Tsawwassen if we were going to be doing a campus in Surrey then that needed to be where we lived as soon as possible - 

The decision to do this was not easy - Over the last year I wrestled with it- I love the ministry I am privileged to lead at SDBC - I get to teach and preach every week sometimes at both church services, I work in a beautiful office that has a view to the mountains, in a small town where everyone really does know my name (whether I know theirs or not!) - but most of all I get to minister to and beside the most amazing and encouraging (yet challenging) group of Young Adults I have ever been exposed to in my life - So when I felt God two and half years ago nudge me in this direction I questioned, waited and looked for other confirmations - Over the last years I have talked extensively and prayed through it with those I love, trust and respect - and even in times of doubt I could not get away from one thing: the calling. God has called me to do this - and as pastors have reminded me as I looked them in the face after years of pain and hardship in ministry - sometimes all you have is the call.

I will blog about the experiences I have as a team (Core Launch Team) and I plan, prepare, pray and position ourselves to follow and join Jesus on the mission he is on in South Surrey - the plan is that we publically launch the church by March or so of 2010 but there is so much work to be done before then - we will be a campus of SDBC (with an incarnational name specific to South Surrey) which will exist under the eldership of SDBC - we will be one family - sharing stories, resource, people and leaders - doing our best to expand the kingdom of God around the GVA in communities of love, faith and hope - faithfully preaching and living for the fame and glory of the name of Jesus to the glory of God! 

I write this as I sit in my new (rented) living room in South Surrey, in our beautiful new townhouse (never been lived in before) boxes and stuff everywhere - a week of moving, frustration and many ups and downs - but now here we sit, already having met many wide-eyed neighbors (all young families!) who are really looking for community - a great and wonderful part of the gospel message of Jesus which the church is about - gospel-centered community - a family, a house, a temple, a body - all images which are communal from start to finish and our great hope is that Jesus uses us - sinful messed up, mistake ridden people to reach some of theses wonderful people by any means necessary for his glory (1 Cor. 9).

The slogan for the city seems fitting for our church, for Erin and I's life - the slogan is "The City of Surrey: the future lives here."

Some Facts about Surrey 

It is BC'a second-largest city by population after the city of Vancouver. The six "town centres" comprising the City of Surrey are: Fleetwood, Whalley/City Centre, Guildford, Newton, Cloverdale, and South Surrey.^[2]

Surrey’s name came from Queen Victoria. She had named New Westminster, thus it is called the Royal City. In England, across the Thames from Westminster is the County of Surrey. It seemed appropriate that across the river from New Westminster there should also be a Surrey. Surrey was named by the first Clerk of the Municipal Council, Mr. H. J. Brewer, around 1880. "Due to the geographic similarity of this district to that of County Surrey in England, in relation to Westminster, I suggest it be named Surrey, British Columbia."

In 2007, the population of Surrey was counted as 423,935 a 17 percent increase from the 2001 population - Vancouver itself boasts of a population of 611,869 - Surrey, many believe, will bypass Vancouver in population in the next five years - it is the second largest city in BC and the fastest growing in the province.

Religious affiliation 

• 25.8% No religious affiliation
• 19.2% Sikh
• 16.2% Roman Catholic
• 11.0% Protestant
• 6.4% Other Christian
• 2.9% Muslim
• 2.8% Hindu
• 1.9% Buddhist

Pastors & Money (Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary)

At a recent gathering of theological educators, I heard a series of three talks on “Money, Sex and Power.” All three presentations were excellent, but it struck me: money is the topic we pay the least attention to in our seminary programs. In the evangelical world where I spend most of my time, we certainly spend a lot of time talking about sex. We argue about it in our denominations and we preach about sexual patterns in our society. We have also become more sensitive to power topics: in recent decades we have become adept at organizing “moral majorities” and “Christian coalitions” to exercise political clout in the public arena.

Money, however, is not a favorite topic. Studies have shown that pastors do not like preaching about financial matters. Nor have they been encouraged to take these issues on by their theological mentors.

There are some obvious reasons for this. Seminary students spend their graduate school years hanging around with people who do not have much money. When they enter ministry they are often still struggling in their own lives to catch up financially, and they do not feel very confident talking about money to their parishioners. And often they come into their ministries after several years in an academic setting where simple-minded comments about “rich capitalists” occur much too frequently.

As a result, preaching about money is often been limited to the periodic sermon about the need to support church programs—so that church members come away with the impression that as long as they make their church pledges they have done their duty as good stewards.

So it is, that during this desperate time people are asking those of us who represent the church, “Where is your God in all of this? Why are you not telling us more about how we can make it through this economic storm? Isn’t it your job to speak truths about the basic issues of life?”

We need to hear these complaints. Thirty years ago, I heard a pastor preach about Jonah. Here we have a prophet of the God of Israel on a ship that has run into a dangerous storm. The prophet is having an intense religious discussion with the vessel’s crew of pagan sailors. We would expect, the preacher said, that the prophet is speaking the truth to folks who are religiously confused. But in this case, the sailors have the best of the argument. They tell the prophet, correctly, that he is being disobedient to the will of God. The preacher’s punchline: sometimes the world preaches important messages to the church.

I’ve been thinking about that punchline as the economic situation has gone from bad to worse in recent months. It isn’t just that churches are not saying enough about the present economic crisis. We have shied away from posing the basic questions about finances in general. Getting Christians to talk to each other about their spending priorities, the things they buy and sell, their attitudes toward possessions, what the Bible says about “the love of money”—in too many churches these have been the taboo topics.

A young Christian business leader told me recently that he and his friends—Christian and non-Christian—are realizing that they had gotten accustomed to putting their trust in progress and growth. They had learned to love luxury. Now all of this was coming apart, and they are being forced to think about what really gives meaning and purpose to their lives.

Those of us who are theologically trained may not be experts on economic systems and personal financial management, but we do know some important things about the underlying issues. The myth of inevitable progress is just that—a myth, and a dangerous one at that. Economic strength can be a false god; we must not give it our ultimate allegiance. Greed destroys souls. The quest for luxury cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human spirit.

The Jonah story points to a good outcome for the church today. The prophet admitted that he’d abdicated his prophetic role and led the ship into angry waters. We should confess that we are not as prepared as we should be to offer guidance in the “money” dimension of life.

Our failure to speak at length about these matters during our long, past season of prosperity has contributed to the deep distress triggered by this present crisis. The recognition of our shortcomings, though, can be the occasion for an opportunity to new obedience. When people ask us, “Where is your God in all of this mess?” we are given a precious moment to speak words of comfort and guidance to a world that is looking for a place of true safety in the midst of the storm. We should be ready.

The Gospel: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

"The Gospel is the power of God for salvation" (Romans 1.16)

Someone told me today that their father was into Joel Rosenberg. Now I know of Joel Rosenberg, I have read one of his books, and some people swear by him - I will not talk about him in this blog, though I do have serious concerns about someone using Bible prophecy to inform foreign policy when it comes to passages that have historic referents having nothing to do with the 21st Century - but this guys father said "No one today is going to believe in Christ unless you can show them that Bible prophecy is real and happening today - that is what Joel does!" Really? Is this how shallow evangelicalism is today? No one will come to know Jesus unless they can see present-day Bible prophecy happening in the Middle East! 

To this I say there needs to be repentance. There is one way and one way only that people get changed, become born-anew, and are saved and it is not through showing them that biblical prophecy is "happening" (whatever that means!) today. It is instead quite plainly, through the gospel. It is the gospel, and it alone is the power of God - the means God uses to bring people to salvation.

That of course leaves us with a question. What exactly is the gospel? Paul gives a good summary of it in 1 Corinthians 15.1-4:

The gospel [is that] which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you...I delivered to you as of first importance...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

The gospel therefore is the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Its important to point something out in this regard. Older evangelicals are really good at the message of sin, Hell, repentance, God's wrath etc., but do not focus too much on Jesus message of the Kingdom. Newer evangelicals, in reaction, are really good at the Kingdom stuff and not very hip to the preaching sin, depravity, repentance, Hell and God's wrath. We must be a people that keeps all of this in view without neglecting either God's program of the establishing of God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, or the fact of human depravity and Hell. 

It must also be said as Tim Keller has pointed out that there is both a "means" of salvation and a "trajectory" of salvation which helps to keep the balance here. The means is clearly God's work in Jesus Christ. The trajectory is the renewal of God's creation (Rom.8.18ff.) One of these elements was at the heart of the older gospel messages, namely, salvation is by grace not works. It was the last element that was usually missing, namely that grace restores nature. 

Simon Gathercole distills a three-point outline that both Paul and the Gospel writers held in common. He writes that Paul's good news was, first, that Jesus was the promised Messianic King and Son of God come to earth as a servant, in human form. (Rom. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:4ff.)

Second, by his death and resurrection, Jesus atoned for our sin and secured our justification by grace, not by our works (1 Cor. 15:3ff.) Third, on the cross Jesus broke the dominion of sin and evil over us (Col. 2:13-15) and at his return he will complete what he began by the renewal of the entire material creation and the resurrection of our bodies (Rom 8:18ff.)

Gathercole then traces these same three aspects in the Synoptics' teaching that Jesus, the Messiah, is the divine Son of God (Mark 1:1) who died as a substitutionary ransom for the many (Mark 10:45), who has conquered the demonic present age with its sin and evil (Mark 1:14-2:10) and will return to regenerate the material world (Matt. 19:28.)

Keller says, "If I had to put this outline in a single statement, I might do it like this: Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever."

This is about gospel-forms. Often we think the gospel need only to be preached to the unreligious, secular, "lost" people - but this is simply not true. The gospel needs to be preached to religious people - Often that is who Jesus was actually preaching to. We need to as well. People need to repent of religion of trying to work their way to God, as well as non-religion - because they both end up placing functional saviors above Jesus - they are both idolatry - just expressed differently. 

It is like the older and younger brothers in the Prodigal Sons story: one is very religious, one is not at all - the story is told to critique both in their comfort and make both realize they are in need of the gospel - the rebellious "prodigal" son and the son who stayed home who gets angry that his father has so much grace - he had all the theological answers, he had all of religion figured out.

We need to preach to both at the same time - make it clear that people have a sin problem for sure - but that problem is expressed in ways they may not understand - by way of idolatry - Again Keller is helpful here: "Kierkagaard defines sin as building your identity-your self-worth and happiness-on anything other than God. That is, I use the biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as much on "doing bad things" but on "making good things into ultimate things."

"Instead of people they are sinning because they are doing this wrong or that wrong - I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God. This idolatry leads to anxiety, obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not give much resistance. Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my "gospel for the uncircumcised" - the rebellious brother.

We must make sure the gospel has changed us first. That we do not use Jesus but have been changed by him at the core of our being. The gospel, Paul says is "concerning God's son" (Rom 1.3) - the gospel is Jesus. Do you know him? Have you been changed by him? If so, tell others - its really that simple. 

In a Christian world trying to make all the latest stuff the "main thing" let's keep the gospel the main thing.