Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Calvin on the Church
She is first of all the living body of Christ and the company of true believers. We are as ready to confess as they are that those who abandon the Church, the common mother of the faithful, the 'pillar and ground of the truth,' revolt from Christ also; but we mean a Church which, from incorruptible seed, begets children for immortality, and when begotten, nourishes them with spiritual food, (that seed and food being the Word of God,) and which by its ministry, preserves entire the truth which God deposited in its bossom
Calvin on the Church
My love for the church and my anxiety about her interests carry me away into a sort of ecstasy, so that I can think of nothing else.
Tim Keller on Missional Church
Tim writes of the characteristics of a missional church:
1. Discourse in the vernacular.
2. Entering and re-telling the culture's stories with the gospel.
3. Theological training of lay people for public life and vocation.
4. Creation of Christian communities which are counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.
5. Practicing Christian unity as much as possible on the local level.
1. Discourse in the vernacular.
2. Entering and re-telling the culture's stories with the gospel.
3. Theological training of lay people for public life and vocation.
4. Creation of Christian communities which are counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.
5. Practicing Christian unity as much as possible on the local level.
Tim Keller on Missional Church
Most traditional evangelical churches still can only win people to Christ who are temperamentally traditional and conservative... but this is a 'shrinking market'. Eventually evangelical churches ensconed in the declining, remaining enclaves of 'Christendom' will have to learn how to beome missional. If it does not do that it will decline or die. We don't simply need evangelistic churches, but rather missional churches.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Barney Zwartz on Tom Frame's Losing My Religion
When I began in journalism more than 30 years ago, my colleagues (and I) were generally hostile to religion, which was seen entirely through the prism of Christianity. With today?s young journalists, that?s largely been replaced by a slightly shame-faced ignorance and an open-minded apathy, doubtless because it wasn?t rammed down their throats.
The under 30s largely grew up without Sunday school, while Catholic schools are far less staffed by nuns and brothers from religious orders. Christianity has a less visible presence in all sorts of ways.
So this is an enormous social change, right? Well, perhaps not. Australia has never been a particularly religious society, from European settlement till now, with a high point just after World War II, but nor has it ever been aggressively secular like, say, France. We have no constitutional separation of church and state.
What characterises religion in Australia is a certain reticence, a ?shy hope in the heart?, as sociologist of religion Gary Bouma observed two years ago in his book Australian Soul. We have made overt, ostentatious religiosity a form of bad manners rather than an offence against the state.
For Bouma, Australian religion is characterised by a serious but light touch, a quiet and even inarticulate reverence, a readiness to laugh at itself, a commitment to life here and now, and a live-and-let-live tolerance. Australians are wary of enthusiasm, of high-temperature and demanding religion, and of imported mass-culture. They dislike intolerance.
Nevertheless, institutional religion is retreating. The number of Australians identifying as Christian as the 2006 Census was 64% (down from 96% in 1901), with another 6% identifying with other religions. However, only about 10% of Australians attend worship on any given week. Somewhere between those two statistics is the real picture of Australian religious identity.
Naturally, the picture is complex. If young Anglo-Australians are less religious than their grandparents, the second and third generations of Muslims are more inclined to be devout than their parents. For many communities ? such as the post-war Greek migrants ? church has been an important part of preserving the home culture in a new country, including language and history. But non-mainstream denominations and religions, once in Australia, tend to adopt the same restrained profile.
Anglican Bishop Tom Frame ? from whose new book Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia this blog title is taken ? draws a distinction between disbelief as a positive rejection of God and unbelief as a neutral position which ranges from thoughtful doubters to the merely ignorant. He quotes Australian poet James McAuley who wrote of people ?who do not think or dream, deny or doubt, But simply don?t know what it?s all about?. Most Australians, according to Frame, are unbelievers.
Australia had a fairly irreligious beginning. Even today, as Catholic commentator Ronald Conway observed, the most common objection of ordinary Australians to religion is that it spoils their fun. Other studies show that they like Jesus but not the church, and they resent those who claim to speak for God ? or rather, what they say on God?s behalf. But it?s all rather low-key.
Frame writes: ?Apart from agitated, sometimes aggressive bloggers, most Australians seem to take a very casual and carefree attitude to religion. They are neither disinterested nor indifferent. When religion curtails their lifestyle or makes demands that exceed what is deemed reasonable, or when they require religious rites of passage or borrow religious ideas to regulate civil life, Australians can become very interested in religion. But the ever-increasing majority who describe themselves as ?not religious? without every saying what they mean by the phrase are still grateful that religion is available if ever they want it and thankful to the extent that what is on offer fulfils their social needs. Anzac Day commemorations are a good example of religion?s social utility.?
Even so, he concedes that belief is declining, and says it is for the same reasons as in Britain and Europe: the ideas that there is no evidence for God, that religion is dangerous, that religion belonged to humanity?s infancy, and that it?s just one possible explanation among many.
Australians tend to see religion as a personal pursuit to be practised in private, and do not criticise another person?s religion unless they make universal claims or try to impose their beliefs. The drift to unbelief has not been the result of deep reflection so much as that belief has gradually become implausible.
Meanwhile, what Christianity offers is no longer fashionable. Frame says it offers access to transcendent truths at a time when there are doubts about God and wariness about truth-claims. It offers forgiveness of sins at a time when personal moral failure is not a priority issue. It offers a glimpse into life?s purpose and destiny at a time when most Westerners are living longer with greater material abundance. It offers an approach to ethical living at a time when most people are more interested in maximising their pleasure and minimising their pain. It offers difficult truths about individual and institutional conduct at a time when most prefer easy political answers. In the face of this, many churches have lost their nerve and their distinctive message.
So what next? That is something we should worry about. The militant disbelievers ? the atheist equivalent of religious fundamentalists ? have a negative program to decry religious belief but not much of a positive one. As Frame says, they carefully ignore their lack of an articulated vision of what a godless world will look like.
?Although they profess few common values or shared virtues, have no comprehensive answers to the world?s problems and are offering no positive program of action to deal with greed and selfishness, betrayal and violence, they assert that a world without God is always and everywhere to be preferred. They ask that others trust their interpretations, receive their pledges and have faith in humanity. I believe that to accept such an invitation carries significant risk.?
Nor does Bouma think Australians will be much swayed. He has no doubt that Australia?s future features a significant role for religion and spirituality, because the needs they address are core to humanity: hope and meaning and connections. After two generations that seemingly deserted spirituality, it is on the rise among young people, he says. Modern forms will "neither be weak, insipid nor irrelevant; nor will they dominate the landscape . . . Hope will continue to be nurtured and quietly celebrated - a shy hope in the heart."
Over to you: Have you lost your religion (or spirituality), or found it? What sort of society will Australia be if religion is successfully marginalised? And how likely is that to happen?
The under 30s largely grew up without Sunday school, while Catholic schools are far less staffed by nuns and brothers from religious orders. Christianity has a less visible presence in all sorts of ways.
So this is an enormous social change, right? Well, perhaps not. Australia has never been a particularly religious society, from European settlement till now, with a high point just after World War II, but nor has it ever been aggressively secular like, say, France. We have no constitutional separation of church and state.
What characterises religion in Australia is a certain reticence, a ?shy hope in the heart?, as sociologist of religion Gary Bouma observed two years ago in his book Australian Soul. We have made overt, ostentatious religiosity a form of bad manners rather than an offence against the state.
For Bouma, Australian religion is characterised by a serious but light touch, a quiet and even inarticulate reverence, a readiness to laugh at itself, a commitment to life here and now, and a live-and-let-live tolerance. Australians are wary of enthusiasm, of high-temperature and demanding religion, and of imported mass-culture. They dislike intolerance.
Nevertheless, institutional religion is retreating. The number of Australians identifying as Christian as the 2006 Census was 64% (down from 96% in 1901), with another 6% identifying with other religions. However, only about 10% of Australians attend worship on any given week. Somewhere between those two statistics is the real picture of Australian religious identity.
Naturally, the picture is complex. If young Anglo-Australians are less religious than their grandparents, the second and third generations of Muslims are more inclined to be devout than their parents. For many communities ? such as the post-war Greek migrants ? church has been an important part of preserving the home culture in a new country, including language and history. But non-mainstream denominations and religions, once in Australia, tend to adopt the same restrained profile.
Anglican Bishop Tom Frame ? from whose new book Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia this blog title is taken ? draws a distinction between disbelief as a positive rejection of God and unbelief as a neutral position which ranges from thoughtful doubters to the merely ignorant. He quotes Australian poet James McAuley who wrote of people ?who do not think or dream, deny or doubt, But simply don?t know what it?s all about?. Most Australians, according to Frame, are unbelievers.
Australia had a fairly irreligious beginning. Even today, as Catholic commentator Ronald Conway observed, the most common objection of ordinary Australians to religion is that it spoils their fun. Other studies show that they like Jesus but not the church, and they resent those who claim to speak for God ? or rather, what they say on God?s behalf. But it?s all rather low-key.
Frame writes: ?Apart from agitated, sometimes aggressive bloggers, most Australians seem to take a very casual and carefree attitude to religion. They are neither disinterested nor indifferent. When religion curtails their lifestyle or makes demands that exceed what is deemed reasonable, or when they require religious rites of passage or borrow religious ideas to regulate civil life, Australians can become very interested in religion. But the ever-increasing majority who describe themselves as ?not religious? without every saying what they mean by the phrase are still grateful that religion is available if ever they want it and thankful to the extent that what is on offer fulfils their social needs. Anzac Day commemorations are a good example of religion?s social utility.?
Even so, he concedes that belief is declining, and says it is for the same reasons as in Britain and Europe: the ideas that there is no evidence for God, that religion is dangerous, that religion belonged to humanity?s infancy, and that it?s just one possible explanation among many.
Australians tend to see religion as a personal pursuit to be practised in private, and do not criticise another person?s religion unless they make universal claims or try to impose their beliefs. The drift to unbelief has not been the result of deep reflection so much as that belief has gradually become implausible.
Meanwhile, what Christianity offers is no longer fashionable. Frame says it offers access to transcendent truths at a time when there are doubts about God and wariness about truth-claims. It offers forgiveness of sins at a time when personal moral failure is not a priority issue. It offers a glimpse into life?s purpose and destiny at a time when most Westerners are living longer with greater material abundance. It offers an approach to ethical living at a time when most people are more interested in maximising their pleasure and minimising their pain. It offers difficult truths about individual and institutional conduct at a time when most prefer easy political answers. In the face of this, many churches have lost their nerve and their distinctive message.
So what next? That is something we should worry about. The militant disbelievers ? the atheist equivalent of religious fundamentalists ? have a negative program to decry religious belief but not much of a positive one. As Frame says, they carefully ignore their lack of an articulated vision of what a godless world will look like.
?Although they profess few common values or shared virtues, have no comprehensive answers to the world?s problems and are offering no positive program of action to deal with greed and selfishness, betrayal and violence, they assert that a world without God is always and everywhere to be preferred. They ask that others trust their interpretations, receive their pledges and have faith in humanity. I believe that to accept such an invitation carries significant risk.?
Nor does Bouma think Australians will be much swayed. He has no doubt that Australia?s future features a significant role for religion and spirituality, because the needs they address are core to humanity: hope and meaning and connections. After two generations that seemingly deserted spirituality, it is on the rise among young people, he says. Modern forms will "neither be weak, insipid nor irrelevant; nor will they dominate the landscape . . . Hope will continue to be nurtured and quietly celebrated - a shy hope in the heart."
Over to you: Have you lost your religion (or spirituality), or found it? What sort of society will Australia be if religion is successfully marginalised? And how likely is that to happen?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Payne on Training
Ministry training is about growing gospel workers.
In other words, if we want to start training disciples to be disciple-makers, we need to build a network of personal ministry, in which people train people. And this can only begin if we choose a bunch of likely candidates and begin to train them as coworkers. This group will work alongside you, and in time, will themselves become trainers of other coworkers. Some of your coworkers will fulfill their potential and become fruitful fellow labourers and disciple-makers. Others will not. But there is no avoiding this. Building a ministry based on people rather than programs is inevitably time-consuming and messy.
In other words, if we want to start training disciples to be disciple-makers, we need to build a network of personal ministry, in which people train people. And this can only begin if we choose a bunch of likely candidates and begin to train them as coworkers. This group will work alongside you, and in time, will themselves become trainers of other coworkers. Some of your coworkers will fulfill their potential and become fruitful fellow labourers and disciple-makers. Others will not. But there is no avoiding this. Building a ministry based on people rather than programs is inevitably time-consuming and messy.
Tony Payne on Discipleship
Tony has 10 points on discipleship; this is number five - that disciples are disciple makers.
Jesus gave his disciples a vision for worldwide disciple-making. No corner of creation is off limits, and no disciple is exempt from the work.
We naturally shrink from the radical nature of this challenge. It replaces our comfortable, cosy vision of the ?nice Christian life? with a call for all Christians to devote their lives to making disciples of Jesus.
Disciple-making is a really useful word to summarize this radical call, because it encompasses both reaching out to non-Christians and encouraging fellow Christians to grow like Christ. As Matthew 28 says, to ?make disciples? includes teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. Disciple-making, then, refers to a massive range of relationships and conversations and activities?everything from preaching a sermon to teaching a Sunday school class; from chatting over the proverbial back fence with a non-Christian neighbour to writing an encouraging note to a Christian friend; from inviting a family member to hear the gospel at a church event to meeting one-to-one to study the Bible with a fellow Christian; from reading the Bible to your children to making a Christian comment over morning tea at the office.
In other words, walking in love as a disciple of Jesus inevitably means working for the evangelization, conversion, follow-up, growth to maturity and training of other people. And this happens (see Proposition 3) through prayerfully sharing God's word with them whenever and however we can.
Jesus gave his disciples a vision for worldwide disciple-making. No corner of creation is off limits, and no disciple is exempt from the work.
We naturally shrink from the radical nature of this challenge. It replaces our comfortable, cosy vision of the ?nice Christian life? with a call for all Christians to devote their lives to making disciples of Jesus.
Disciple-making is a really useful word to summarize this radical call, because it encompasses both reaching out to non-Christians and encouraging fellow Christians to grow like Christ. As Matthew 28 says, to ?make disciples? includes teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. Disciple-making, then, refers to a massive range of relationships and conversations and activities?everything from preaching a sermon to teaching a Sunday school class; from chatting over the proverbial back fence with a non-Christian neighbour to writing an encouraging note to a Christian friend; from inviting a family member to hear the gospel at a church event to meeting one-to-one to study the Bible with a fellow Christian; from reading the Bible to your children to making a Christian comment over morning tea at the office.
In other words, walking in love as a disciple of Jesus inevitably means working for the evangelization, conversion, follow-up, growth to maturity and training of other people. And this happens (see Proposition 3) through prayerfully sharing God's word with them whenever and however we can.
Bryan Chappell on Worship
He breaks down this ?gospel structure? down into eight basic components:
1. Adoration (recognition of God?s greatness and grace)
2. Confession (acknowledgement of our sin and need for grace)
3. Assurance (affirmation of God?s provision of grace)
4. Thanksgiving (expression of praise and thanks for god?s grace)
5. Petition and Intercession (expression of dependence on God?s grace)
6. Instruction (acquiring the knowledge to grow in grace)
7. Communion/Fellowship (celebrating the grace of union with Christ and his people)
8. Charge and Blessing (living for and in the light of God?s grace)
In the New Testament, Chapell says we find hints of a ?gospel structure? in Rom. 11-15 and Rev. 4-21. But he astutely observes that ?the lack of explicit detail [related to a liturgy] must reflect an intention to guide us by transcendent principles rather than by specific worship forms that could become culture-bound, time-locked, and superstition-invoking.? That means there can be variation in how these components are fleshed out. The important thing is that we have a gospel-driven purpose in why we do what we do.
1. Adoration (recognition of God?s greatness and grace)
2. Confession (acknowledgement of our sin and need for grace)
3. Assurance (affirmation of God?s provision of grace)
4. Thanksgiving (expression of praise and thanks for god?s grace)
5. Petition and Intercession (expression of dependence on God?s grace)
6. Instruction (acquiring the knowledge to grow in grace)
7. Communion/Fellowship (celebrating the grace of union with Christ and his people)
8. Charge and Blessing (living for and in the light of God?s grace)
In the New Testament, Chapell says we find hints of a ?gospel structure? in Rom. 11-15 and Rev. 4-21. But he astutely observes that ?the lack of explicit detail [related to a liturgy] must reflect an intention to guide us by transcendent principles rather than by specific worship forms that could become culture-bound, time-locked, and superstition-invoking.? That means there can be variation in how these components are fleshed out. The important thing is that we have a gospel-driven purpose in why we do what we do.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Preaching
The preacher must be a serious man; he must never give the impression that preaching is something light or superficial or trivial?.What is happing [in the act of preaching] is that he is speaking to them from God, he is speaking to them about God, he is speaking about their condition, the state of their souls. He is telling them that they are, by nature, under the wrath of God??the children of wrath even as others??that the character of the life they?re living is offensive to God and under the judgment of God, and warning them of the dread eternal possibility that lies ahead of them. In any case the preacher, of all men, should realize the fleeting nature of life in this world. The men of the world are so immersed in its business and affairs, its pleasures and all is vain show, that the one thing they never stop to consider is the fleeting nature of life. All this means that the preacher should create and convey the impression of the seriousness of what is happening the moment he even appears in the pulpit. You remember the famous lines of Richard Baxter: ?I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.??You remember what was said of the saintly Robert Murray McCheyne of Scotland in the last century. It is said that when he appeared in the pulpit, even before he had uttered a single word, people would begin to weep silently. Why? Because of this very element of seriousness. The very sight of the man gave the impression that he had come from the presence of God and that he was to deliver a message from God to them. That is what had such an effect upon the people even before he had opened his mouth. We forget this at our peril, and at great cost to our listeners.
P&P 85-86
P&P 85-86
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Peter Drucker on Leadership
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
Peter Drucker on Leadership
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.?
Henrik Ibsen on Leadership
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
John Piper on Sovereignty
The doctrine of God?s sovereignty is an anchor for the troubled soul, a hope for the praying heart, a stability for fragile faith, a confidence in pursuing the lost, a guarantee of Christ?s atonement, a high mystery to keep us humble, and a solid ground for all praise.
Ralph Nader on Leadership
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Leslie Newbigin on Church and Mission
The church... is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.
Gospel Coaltion on Missional Communities
The ministry we have outlined is relatively rare. There are many seeker?driven churches that help many people find Christ. There are many churches seeking to engage the culture through political activism. There is a fast?growing charismatic movement with emphasis on glorious, passionate, corporate worship. There are many congregations with strong concern for doctrinal rigor and purity and who work very hard to keep themselves separate from the world. There are many churches with a radical commitment to the poor and marginalized.We do not, however, see enough individual churches that embody the full, integrative gospel balance we have outlined here.
SMH on Hired Friends
SMH article 22 Sep 09:
He's best friend you'll never have
Date: September 22 2009
TOKYO: The best man, Ryuichi Ichinokawa, took his place before the wedding guests, cleared his throat and for the next few minutes spoke movingly about the bride and groom. But his speech omitted one crucial fact: that he hardly knew either of them at all.
As a professional stand-in, Mr Ichinokawa is part of a growing service sector in Japan that rents out fake spouses, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends to spare their clients' blushes at social functions.
He launched his agency, Hagemashi Tai (I Want to Cheer You Up), 3? years ago and now employs 30 people.
The number of rent-a-friend agencies in Japan has doubled to about 10 in the past eight years. The best known, Office Agent, has 1000 people on its books.
The rise of the phoney friend is a symptom of social and economic changes, combined with a deep-seated cultural aversion to giving personal and professional problems a public airing.
Demand has surged for bogus bosses among men who have lost their jobs; for colleagues among contract employees who never stay in the same job long enough to make friends, and from divorcees and lovelorn singles.
Mr Ichinokawa's stand-ins charge 15,000 yen ($190) to attend a wedding reception, but extra if they are asked to make a speech or sing karaoke.
His preparation is exhaustive, examining every possible question that, if answered incorrectly or not at all, will embarrass his client.
''I've never once been caught out,'' he said. ''If I'm pretending to be someone's husband, I make sure I know everything about my 'wife', from her mobile phone number to what 'our' kids have been getting up to lately.''
He's best friend you'll never have
Date: September 22 2009
TOKYO: The best man, Ryuichi Ichinokawa, took his place before the wedding guests, cleared his throat and for the next few minutes spoke movingly about the bride and groom. But his speech omitted one crucial fact: that he hardly knew either of them at all.
As a professional stand-in, Mr Ichinokawa is part of a growing service sector in Japan that rents out fake spouses, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends to spare their clients' blushes at social functions.
He launched his agency, Hagemashi Tai (I Want to Cheer You Up), 3? years ago and now employs 30 people.
The number of rent-a-friend agencies in Japan has doubled to about 10 in the past eight years. The best known, Office Agent, has 1000 people on its books.
The rise of the phoney friend is a symptom of social and economic changes, combined with a deep-seated cultural aversion to giving personal and professional problems a public airing.
Demand has surged for bogus bosses among men who have lost their jobs; for colleagues among contract employees who never stay in the same job long enough to make friends, and from divorcees and lovelorn singles.
Mr Ichinokawa's stand-ins charge 15,000 yen ($190) to attend a wedding reception, but extra if they are asked to make a speech or sing karaoke.
His preparation is exhaustive, examining every possible question that, if answered incorrectly or not at all, will embarrass his client.
''I've never once been caught out,'' he said. ''If I'm pretending to be someone's husband, I make sure I know everything about my 'wife', from her mobile phone number to what 'our' kids have been getting up to lately.''
Monday, September 21, 2009
Miranda Devine on Narcissism
What's more, narcissism is on the increase, becoming a pervasive condition of society, according to two American psychologists, Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, who published a book this year, The Narcissism Epidemic.They include a long-term study of 37,000 American college students, in which the incidence of narcissistic personality traits increased on a scale rivalling obesity, accelerating in the past decade.
In 1982, 15 per cent of students scored highly for narcissistic personality traits. By 2006 the percentage had climbed to 25. Twenge claims only 12 per cent of students in the 1950s agreed with the statement ''I am an important person''; by the late 1980s that percentage had climbed to 80. The reason for the explosion in narcissism in recent years, according to the Melbourne adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, is not just the self-esteem movement but poor parenting.
"Parents are becoming increasingly self absorbed [believing] 'the single most important thing in the world is for me to work like a dog to get the house, the car and the holiday house' and don't ? realise all their kids want is to be loved and to have one-on-one time with their parents.'' He says an "epidemic of poor parenting" is to blame for a drastic rise in psychological problems in young people. "Generation Y is being ravaged by depression, anxiety disorders and stress disorders."
For narcissistic personality disorder to take root, a person has to be born with a genetic "template" for over-sensitivity and over-reactivity. "Then something has to happen."
Carr-Gregg says parental abandonment, coupled with invalidation of the child's corresponding emotional pain, triggers the disorder. "If you grew up in an environment with time-poor parents, you are brought up in a Lord of the Flies [type of] emotional silo by other disaffected young people. It's the psychologically blind leading the blind.
"I see ? kids who are overindulged from a very early age ? and become incapable of delayed gratification. When I meet these kids in later life they tend to exaggerate their achievements and talents, tend to believe they are special and unique and interesting. They require excessive amounts of admiration and if they don't get it, they'll wipe you off the face of the planet."
In 1982, 15 per cent of students scored highly for narcissistic personality traits. By 2006 the percentage had climbed to 25. Twenge claims only 12 per cent of students in the 1950s agreed with the statement ''I am an important person''; by the late 1980s that percentage had climbed to 80. The reason for the explosion in narcissism in recent years, according to the Melbourne adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, is not just the self-esteem movement but poor parenting.
"Parents are becoming increasingly self absorbed [believing] 'the single most important thing in the world is for me to work like a dog to get the house, the car and the holiday house' and don't ? realise all their kids want is to be loved and to have one-on-one time with their parents.'' He says an "epidemic of poor parenting" is to blame for a drastic rise in psychological problems in young people. "Generation Y is being ravaged by depression, anxiety disorders and stress disorders."
For narcissistic personality disorder to take root, a person has to be born with a genetic "template" for over-sensitivity and over-reactivity. "Then something has to happen."
Carr-Gregg says parental abandonment, coupled with invalidation of the child's corresponding emotional pain, triggers the disorder. "If you grew up in an environment with time-poor parents, you are brought up in a Lord of the Flies [type of] emotional silo by other disaffected young people. It's the psychologically blind leading the blind.
"I see ? kids who are overindulged from a very early age ? and become incapable of delayed gratification. When I meet these kids in later life they tend to exaggerate their achievements and talents, tend to believe they are special and unique and interesting. They require excessive amounts of admiration and if they don't get it, they'll wipe you off the face of the planet."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
John Piper on Mission
"Three billion people today are outside Jesus Christ. Two-thirds of them have no viable Christian witness in their culture. If they are to hear ? and Christ commands that they hear ? then cross-cultural missionaries will have to be sent and paid for. All the wealth needed to send this new army of good news ambassadors is already in the church. If we, like Paul, are content with the simple necessities of life, hundreds of millions of dollars in the church would be released to take the gospel to the frontiers. The revolution of joy and freedom it would cause at home would be the best local witness imaginable." (Desiring God, pp. 166-67)
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Steve Timmis on Parachurch
I know saying this isn?t going to win me any friends, but someone has to tell the king he?s naked. Is it not a quiet madness for churches to largely outsource their discipleship (to parachurch agencies) and training (to theological colleges)? The best context for both discipleship and training is the people of God on mission (a.k.a. church).
Jonathan Dodson on Missional Communities
Four Principles from Jonathan:
SHARE life and truth through stories and Scripture
PRAY for one another and the city
ENGAGE people and culture of your community with the gospel
LOVE one another by eating and exercising hospitality
SHARE life and truth through stories and Scripture
PRAY for one another and the city
ENGAGE people and culture of your community with the gospel
LOVE one another by eating and exercising hospitality
Friday, September 18, 2009
George Whitefield on Preaching
?As the scene was new and I had just begun to be an extempore preacher [ie, preaching without notes], it often occasioned many inward conflicts.
?Sometimes when twenty thousand people were before me, I had not, in my own apprehension, a word to say either to God or them.
?But I never was totally deserted, and frequently so assisted, that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, ?Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water?.?
?Sometimes when twenty thousand people were before me, I had not, in my own apprehension, a word to say either to God or them.
?But I never was totally deserted, and frequently so assisted, that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, ?Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water?.?
Walter Brueggemann on Lament
"Where the cry [lament] is not voiced, heaven is not moved and history is not initiated. And then the end is hopelessness... It makes one wonder about the price of our civility, that this chance in our faith has largely been lost because the lament psalms have dropped out of the functioning canon. In that loss we may unwittingly endorse false self that can take no initiative... and we may unwittingly endorse unjust systems about which no questions can be raised."
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Steve Timmis on Church
If church is primarily an event when the people of God gather, and in that gathering they are equipped to take the gospel as individuals out into the world, then praise God for that intent and consequent action. If church is an identity which is ours as a people who gather around the Word and who live together under that Word so that the world might see the fruit of the gospel in adorning lives and hear the gospel spoken as the explanation, then praise God for that!
For us, church is a community being shaped by the Word through the Spirit for its shared life in the world.
For us, church is a community being shaped by the Word through the Spirit for its shared life in the world.
Steve Timmis on Church
I guess we understand church as an activity that is defining of our identity. The people of God is the overarching category, and ?church? is one of the ways in which they are described. This might work as one of those working definitions: ?a company of God's people called together by the gospel, to live under the gospel and make the gospel known by her life and her words?.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
George Whitefield on Evangelism
When it comes to evangelism, I think like a Calvinist and preach like an Arminian.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Michael Patton on Sanctification
Sanctification has more to do with how dependent you have become on the Lord, not necessarily about being ?good.? Sanctification has more to do with how often you are broken before him, not your stoic ability to deal with pain. Sanctification has more to do with a recognition of your weaknesses than of your strengths. Sanctification has more to do with repentance than with the things that don?t require repentance.
SMH on Marriage
This article from SMH Tue 8 Sep 09 shows the latest trends in Australians' views on marriage, sex, sexuality, and God....
If you always thought Australians were a godless pack of loose-living bastards, you're right. Census figures confirm that more Australians are living together before getting married, that more children are being born out of wedlock and couples are more likely than ever to be married by a celebrant than in a religious ceremony.
Changing social attitudes over the past few decades have resulted in a greater acceptance of couplings outside marriage, including de facto and same-sex relationships.
Figures just released by the Bureau of Statistics show that registered marriages are at a 20-year high, and weddings officiated by civil celebrants are increasingly popular. In 2008, civil celebrants performed 65 per cent of marriages.
"This is part of a wider trend towards secularisation in Australia," says Lixia Qu, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. "Not only do more people today identify themselves as being of no religion (21 per cent compared to 18 per cent in 1996) but the percentage of people who call themselves Christian has declined 78 to 72 per cent from 1969 to 2006."
These changes are easy to take for granted and yet they represent a significant re-ordering of moral priorities, according to demographer Bernard Salt.
"If you had said years ago that we would see many more people living together before marriage and double the number of kids being born out of wedlock, moralists would have seen it as proof of the decline of civilisation and the collapse of our moral fibre. But the reality is that the taboos we once thought immovable are completely flexible."
Salt believes such shifts show our maturity. "People are less preoccupied with sexuality and more concerned about discrimination, with sexism and racism and even with sustainability. Who cares if you're gay? Who cares if you live together without getting married?"
Likewise, the significance of marriage has diminished.
"People care less about the actual marriage, so they don't mind having kids outside of it."
This is partly a function of gender equality. "Marriage is part of an earlier notion that women were dependent on men. Women were saying 'if I am going to invest in you by bearing your kids, then you have to commit to me in marriage'. But with women able to earn an equal income, that contract has been weakened."
If you always thought Australians were a godless pack of loose-living bastards, you're right. Census figures confirm that more Australians are living together before getting married, that more children are being born out of wedlock and couples are more likely than ever to be married by a celebrant than in a religious ceremony.
Changing social attitudes over the past few decades have resulted in a greater acceptance of couplings outside marriage, including de facto and same-sex relationships.
Figures just released by the Bureau of Statistics show that registered marriages are at a 20-year high, and weddings officiated by civil celebrants are increasingly popular. In 2008, civil celebrants performed 65 per cent of marriages.
"This is part of a wider trend towards secularisation in Australia," says Lixia Qu, a researcher at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. "Not only do more people today identify themselves as being of no religion (21 per cent compared to 18 per cent in 1996) but the percentage of people who call themselves Christian has declined 78 to 72 per cent from 1969 to 2006."
These changes are easy to take for granted and yet they represent a significant re-ordering of moral priorities, according to demographer Bernard Salt.
"If you had said years ago that we would see many more people living together before marriage and double the number of kids being born out of wedlock, moralists would have seen it as proof of the decline of civilisation and the collapse of our moral fibre. But the reality is that the taboos we once thought immovable are completely flexible."
Salt believes such shifts show our maturity. "People are less preoccupied with sexuality and more concerned about discrimination, with sexism and racism and even with sustainability. Who cares if you're gay? Who cares if you live together without getting married?"
Likewise, the significance of marriage has diminished.
"People care less about the actual marriage, so they don't mind having kids outside of it."
This is partly a function of gender equality. "Marriage is part of an earlier notion that women were dependent on men. Women were saying 'if I am going to invest in you by bearing your kids, then you have to commit to me in marriage'. But with women able to earn an equal income, that contract has been weakened."
Stephen Colbert Refutes Bart Ehrman 'Misquoting Jesus'
Brilliant!
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/70912/june-20-2006/bart-ehrman
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/70912/june-20-2006/bart-ehrman
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Carl Lundquist on Devotion
A Christian journey that is devotional is one which values and treasures a heart-felt warming of God's presence in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit
Jonathon Edwards on Holy Spirit
The state of the times extremely requires a fullness of the divine Spirit in ministers, and we ought to give ourselves no rest till we have obtained it. And in order to do this, I think ministers, above all persons, ought to be much in secret prayer and fasting.
John Piper on Fasting
One of the great effects of fasting is that it assists what it expresses. I mean that fasting is mainly an expression of the soul's hunger for God. It is not a contrived means to make us love God. We love him and long for him. And then fasting rises up as a way of saying earnestly with our whole body what our hearts feel: I hunger for you, O God!
AHFG p89-90
AHFG p89-90
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Acts 29 Church Planter - Ray Ortlund
"Acts 29 welcomed a new church planter recently, Ray Ortlund Jr. Though he may be new to the pastorate, he is not new to ministry. Prior to becoming a pastor Ray was the Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School alongside Mars Hill Church?s good friend, Dr. D.A. Carson.
Mars Hill Church members may know him better as the man who wrote the notes for the book of Isaiah in the ESV Study Bible."
A high calibre church planter!
Mars Hill Church members may know him better as the man who wrote the notes for the book of Isaiah in the ESV Study Bible."
A high calibre church planter!
Sam Allbury on Trinity
What happens when we forgetting the Trinity at Church? At least two things will follow.
1. Our view of church will become functional and not relational.
We will only meet to ?do? things, and will not really see the point of meeting for merely social reasons. Our gatherings will become a matter of utility and not family. In churches like this there will not be much life-sharing. The minister will see his congregation as ?clients? or 'patients'; his ministry as one of shunting people through the right programs or 'fixing the sick'. He will see himself as a professional ?Bible teacher?. His people will feel handled rather than loved. The church will be the place to grow for a while in understanding, or at least in Bible knowledge, but will not be the place to find authentic Christian community.
2. Our aim for church will be uniformity and not diversity. The Trinity shows us a God who is unity in diversity rather than unity in sameness. The Father, Son and Spirit are not interchangeable. They share an ontological unity, but function differently within the purposes of God. This lies behind Paul's teaching on the variety of gifts found in the church in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Our unity-in-diversity reflects God's unity-in-diversity.
A Unitarian view of God will therefore lead to a monochrome view of the church. Maturity will be understood in terms of trying to make everyone a certain kind of Christian. Christians will look the same and sound the same. They'll be encouraged into the same kind of ministry. A particular gifting will be the hallmark of the spiritually advanced. In Corinth (reading between the lines) it was evidently the gift of tongues. Today, in many reformed churches, it is the gift of teaching. Those who are really committed to the gospel will become ?Bible-teachers? (there they are again). There will be cultural and vocational flatness.
Christianity it may well be, but a form of Christianity unwittingly more akin to Islamic, not evangelical, theology.
1. Our view of church will become functional and not relational.
We will only meet to ?do? things, and will not really see the point of meeting for merely social reasons. Our gatherings will become a matter of utility and not family. In churches like this there will not be much life-sharing. The minister will see his congregation as ?clients? or 'patients'; his ministry as one of shunting people through the right programs or 'fixing the sick'. He will see himself as a professional ?Bible teacher?. His people will feel handled rather than loved. The church will be the place to grow for a while in understanding, or at least in Bible knowledge, but will not be the place to find authentic Christian community.
2. Our aim for church will be uniformity and not diversity. The Trinity shows us a God who is unity in diversity rather than unity in sameness. The Father, Son and Spirit are not interchangeable. They share an ontological unity, but function differently within the purposes of God. This lies behind Paul's teaching on the variety of gifts found in the church in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Our unity-in-diversity reflects God's unity-in-diversity.
A Unitarian view of God will therefore lead to a monochrome view of the church. Maturity will be understood in terms of trying to make everyone a certain kind of Christian. Christians will look the same and sound the same. They'll be encouraged into the same kind of ministry. A particular gifting will be the hallmark of the spiritually advanced. In Corinth (reading between the lines) it was evidently the gift of tongues. Today, in many reformed churches, it is the gift of teaching. Those who are really committed to the gospel will become ?Bible-teachers? (there they are again). There will be cultural and vocational flatness.
Christianity it may well be, but a form of Christianity unwittingly more akin to Islamic, not evangelical, theology.
EM Bounds on Prayer
The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men - men and women of prayer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Discipline
We claim liberty from all legal compulsion... and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism; we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer, in meditation, and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behaviour and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world, and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life.
COD p189
COD p189
John Piper on Grace
The assistance we need, above all physical healing and all financial security and all employment successes and all career guidance and all relational harmony, is the divine assistance to see and to savour the glory of God in Christ.
AHFG p63
AHFG p63
John Piper on Desires
Desires for other things - there's the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavoury, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with 'other things'. Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach's appetite for food might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God.
AHFG p10
AHFG p10
Augustine on Trials
For the most part, the human mind cannot attain to self-knowledge otherwise than by making trial of its powers through temptation, by some kind of experimental and not merely verbal self-interrogation.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Francis Chan on Worship
Let?s be honest: If you combine a charismatic speaker, a talented worship band, and some hip, creative events, people will attend your church. Yet this does not mean that the Holy Spirit of God is actively working and moving in the lives of the people who are coming.
Francis Chan on Holy Spirit
From my perspective, the Holy Spirit is tragically neglected and, for all practical purposes, forgotten. While no evangelical would deny His existence, I?m willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence or action in their lives over the past year. And many of them do not believe they can.
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