Not to Us
January 11, 2010
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Charismatic, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Dying to Self, Godly Character, Humility, In the News, Maturity, Notable Christians, Obedience, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Revival, Simplicity Feedback : 15 comments
On the back of last week’s post (“Your Holy Spirit Is W-A-Y Too Safe“), I want to add an addendum.
In some charismatic circles, much is being made of the recent “outpouring” at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City. Now it appears that Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries has brought in Todd Bentley of the infamous Lakeland (Fla.) “revival,” and, of course, we’re getting claims of a fresh wave of glory and outpourings (HT: Bene D). And yes, Mike Bickle of IHOP recently spoke there, bringing it all full circle. (See Bentley’s tweets starting Jan. 6 for the blow-by-blow.)
I’m writing this Sunday evening, Jan. 10, but I want to take us back a couple weeks to Christmas.
When the Messiah was born into the world, the people who got the notification were those on the fringes. Shepherds. Wise men from the East. Not the greater nation of Jews; they missed it.
Should churches see revival in the days ahead, I believe that those touched by genuine moves of the Holy Spirit are going to be those OUTSIDE traditional charismatic church venues. These will be churches where people have been earnestly praying for God to shake them out, churches filled with people most desiring of repentance, not charismata. They will be people who are waiting expectantly for God to manifest Himself in their midst in a way they are not willing to plan, a move that happens on God’s timetable and God’s way. And that move will excite people whose bookshelves are devoid of tomes by Bickle, Joyner, Hagin, Roberts, and so on.
Most of all, I think if such a revival comes, it will be among humble people who can’t point back with pride and say, “Look at all the revivals we helped birth! Look at all the gifts we’ve manifested and how God has used us! Look how doggone charismatic we are.”
In other words, should we have revival break out in churches in the next few years, it’s not going to be among the usual suspects.
Tags: Bickle, Charismania, Charismata, Holy Spirit, IHOP, International House of Prayer, Joyner, Mike Bickle, MorningStar Ministries, Rick Joyner, Todd BentleyRelated posts
Why Christianity Is Failing in America – Further Thoughts
November 17, 2009
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Boldness, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Community, Counterculture, Creativity, Discernment, Dying to Self, Godly Character, Humility, Leadership, Maturity, Obedience, Oddities, Persecution, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Relevance, Revival, Simplicity Feedback : 6 comments
I almost always post on Monday. I didn’t yesterday because I was thinking more about my post from Friday, “Why Christianity Is Failing in America.” A couple readers asked the question I knew would come—”"So how do we fix the problem?”—which led me into all sorts of introspective thought.
I don’t like raising problems without at least some stab at a solution. There are a million Christian blogs out there moaning about this problem and that, and I don’t want Cerulean Sanctum to simply add to the collective complaint. I’m looking for answers.
The question of how to overcome the kind of half-baked, slacker mentality that permeates American Christendom needs better brains and souls than mine to find lasting answers. I struggle with this morass we find ourselves in as much as anyone. I’m not sure how to extricate myself, much less provide life-changing answers to anyone else.
Still, a few core concepts might lead to resolution:
1. We Christians must stop worrying about what others think. For all our talk in America of being individuals, for all our love of the iconoclast who does it his way, for all our national pride at stepping up to the plate when no other country will, we Americans are stunningly conformist. And we are that way largely because we are scared to death of suffering eternal damnation because someone in the fast lane might think we’re not good enough.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
—Galatians 1:10
The Church of Jesus Christ in these here United States will keep on preserving the status quo as long as we fear men. And truly, we are shaking in our boots at what others think of us. Such a group will never be martyred. But it’s going to take some level of personal sacrifice to break the self-conscious chains that tie us to conformity to the world.
2. We have got to take time apart from the world and reconnect with the brains God gave us. We Christians in America are some of the least introspective people in the universe. Talk of the “examined life” goes right over our heads.
If I could wish one thing for American Christians right now it would be to jettison whatever it is that keeps us distracted 24/7/365 (even church-related stuff), and get before God in silence to pray.
But more than prayer, I think that modern Christians must take back time from wordly living to do something even more necessary in light of the times we live in: We must think and meditate.
I am continuously startled by how pragmatism is rapidly undermining the base that Christianity was built upon. We’ve become people who fail to consider the consequences of each “new thing” we promote, even when those things seem on the surface to be great for the Church. Fact is, most aren’t. “Because we can, we should” is practically the mantra of contemporary Christianity in the West. And it is that way because we live unexamined lives. We bought the world’s marketing and we’re remaking the Church in a pragmatist image.
The way we are headed, perhaps we should just jettison the pretense and go for it. I hear about the lack of men in churches today. So why toss another chunk of change at yet another doomed-to-fail men’s program purchasable from whatever the hottest new church is? Just put up the stripper poles and hire a few hot things in skimpy outfits to dance before the service. It would work. You could probably find a Bible verse taken way out of context to support it, too.
Too extreme? Well, that’s what happens when Christians don’t take time to think about the consequences of everything we do. We’ve trapped ourselves in this race to the bottom because we turned off our brains during our rush to consume and be stylin’, with-it individuals like everyone else.
3. We have got to question the way we do EVERYTHING. We can go on and on about how Jesus turned the world on its head when He walked the earth, yet we go out from our Sunday meetings to live conformist lives that never question the status quo.
In concert with the call to sit in silence before God while asking Him to respark our burned-out minds, we Christians must begin anew to ask the question WHY. This is not an exercise with re-evaluating our doctrine. Too many churches fry their theology in the crucible of why. Instead, we need to place every aspect of our praxis as believers in America under the white hot stage lights of why.
Why do we sink enormous amounts of money into church buildings? Why do we slave in jobs outside the home? Why do we put our kids in private Christian schools? Why do we read only Christian novels? Why do we follow a church service order of worship, announcements, offering, sermon, go home? Why do we have a youth ministry? Why are there so few Christian leaders on the national stage who are making a difference? Why do we buy items made in the country of China that actively persecutes our fellow Christians? Why do we depend on others to feed us? Why are we letting Muslims outreproduce us? Why are there still orphanages? Why are we not making disciples? Why do so many of us wonder if we’re truly saved?
Why?
People looking to replace their “old” iPod they’ve had for two whole years don’t ask the question why. They don’t question anything except why they didn’t get their new gizmo in the mail the next day despite paying for overnight shipping.
People in the Church in America, on the whole, are not asking why. And worse, we’re not following up the why with the answer that the Gospel will give us. And that’s largely the reason why we keep doing things the world’s way and not the Lord’s.
4. Genuine community has never before been so needed. When Christians start sitting in silence before God, begin holding up their practices to God to be examined under the question of why and the Gospel’s reply, the next step is for the Christian community to join together to take what has been gained and change the world.
What Christian community?
Oh. Yeah. Hmm.
I no longer support the long-cherished belief that it takes one person to change the world. Fact is, with 6.5 billion people on this planet, nothing happens outside of groups. I can radically change my behavior and little around me will change. By its sheer enormity our culture tamps out whatever fires I may start as an individual.
Any godly change that will make a difference in the world today will not come through a scattered set of individuals but a like-minded group of hundreds—such as your typical church. That so few churches are able to spark that kind of change in their localities…well, you get the point.
The problems we face as a Church in America cannot be addressed by individual martyrs. And it’s going to take martyrs to buck the massive systems we’ve erected that blind us to the Lord’s way. You can crush an individual. It’s more complicated to crush several hundred people. The pressure is more equalized among all involved, with fewer individuals likely to crack entirely. (That’s the Body of Christ working as a genuine body, with each organ supporting the others.)
If I jump off the bridge, I make a small splash. But if several hundred jump with me, look out for the wave…
5. “Seek first the Kingdom” cannot be relegated to a platitude. Every Christian in the United States will raise his or her hand to the question of “How many here are seeking first the Kingdom?” But the biggest lie we Christians tell on a day to to day basis concerns how much we’re truly committed to that truth.
If you are a Christian, seeking the Kingdom first must necessarily change the entire way you live. It has to. That it’s not for so many of us only proves our failure to seek. We instead seek personal glory and comfort at the cost of discipleship. It’s as if we don’t believe in a life to come, only the vaporous reality of this physical world.
In America, pastors have the reins for leading people to Kingdom-mindedness, whether we (or they) like it or not. In truth, every one of us is charged to spur on our brothers and sisters to growth in Christ for His Kingdom. But sadly, until the Church here gets some momentum, pastors are it.
And so I ask pastors, why (there’s that question) do so few of your charges get what it means to seek the Kingdom first? Why is it that your people seek houses, promotions, vacations, and comfort above the Kingdom? Worse, why is it that you preach sermons that only fuel people’s desire to fill their lives with that which sets itself up against the Kingdom of God?
A simple example: I’ve heard a bazillion messages on how we Christians can prosper in our own lives, but I can’t ever remember hearing a sermon explaining why Christians should seek economic justice for the poor, even if it means they must become poor themselves to do so.
Genuine Christian education is in a freefall in this country. Our curriculum is a shambles of wordliness. Our sermons only prop up fallen kingdoms. Our people never see genuine Christian practice.
And it’s all because we’ve made the Kingdom of God a concept rather than a reality.
The Church in America will reverse its tragic trajectory when fearless groups of Christians who have meditated on the tough issues of our day, who ask the question why, band together and put the Kingdom first again.
That’s highly conceptual. I know that. But it’s going to be slightly different depending on where one lives and the strength (or weakness) of the local churches in that area. (Maybe I’ll provide some general practical advice in days to come.)
This is a genuine tar pit we’re in, folks, and we’re up to our necks in the world’s black goo. I will even go so far as to say that revival alone is not the cure-all. The Lord can light the fire, but we have got to be more serious about what we do when He does. And that will take many of us thinking while we challenge the status quo. Perhaps it will even take us rising up before the best of the fire falls.
I think that talk is not cheap in this case. I think talk can stir up the dissatisfaction that many of us feel. Perhaps that will build the momentum for a new American Church Revolution.
We can hang together or we can hang separately. God is giving us the choice.
Tags: American Church, Bravery, Christianity in America, Christianity in Decline, Community, Counterculture, Culture, Faith, Martyr, Martyrdom, Perseverance, Ray Ortlund Jr., Society, Soren KierkegaardRelated posts
The Finger in the Mirror
September 23, 2009
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Benevolence, Boldness, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Counterculture, Dying to Self, Faith, Godly Character, Hospitality, Humility, In the News, Leadership, Love, Maturity, Obedience, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Relevance, Simplicity Feedback : 5 comments
We hear the word repentance bandied about in Christians circles, and in some of those circles, it’s practically a mantra. The list of things we Christians need to repent from is an arm long, filled with things like lust, jealousy, faithlessness, failure to tithe, lack of a decent quiet time, etc.
We also hear pastors and parachurch leaders going on and on about the culture wars. Each day seems to bring a new call to arms from some ministry or self-appointed Christian leader to pray and/or write our political reps over homosexual marriage, abortion, Obama’s health care package, illegal immigration, the rise of Islam and jihad, and so on. The list is nearly endless.
But what I NEVER hear is a combination of the two messages that asks Christians to repent for our complicity in helping to empower the very culture war problems we fight. Never.
A friend sent me a call to prayer for the gathering of Muslims due to take place Friday, Sept. 26, 2009, in Washington, D.C. Evidently, Islam is trying yet again to market itself as the religion of peace, even as it promotes Sharia law, says little about terrorism, and advocates a host of legalistic follies that oppose the Gospel of Grace and send millions into a Christless eternity.
When I read that call to prayer arms, I had to ask the question that Christians in America avoid at all cost: In what ways am I at fault for this?
A few thoughts to consider:
- If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus in ministering to the sick, would we have the health care debate now tearing our country apart?
- If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus in caring for the orphan, the widow, and the elderly, would we have abortion on demand and a nearly bankrupt Social Security system?
- If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus in visiting the prisoner, would we have a sky-high recidivism rate?
- If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus in caring for the poor,
would we have government welfare and the burden of having fostered a society-wide victim mentality? - If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus in loving the outcast, would we still be fighting the homosexual agenda on its proponents’ terms or battling race and illegal immigration issues?
- If American Christians had continued to follow the way of Jesus by actually obeying His Great Commission, would we be fighting Islam in this country or dealing with any of the culture wars we seemingly can’t wait to engage with calls to prayers and letters to our congressman?
I would offer that the answer to these and other questions like them is a simple NO.
I would offer that we Christians are as much to blame for the condition we find ourselves in as any of our supposed foes are, but you won’t hear that from the pulpits or from parachurch ministry leaders.
When the Church of Jesus fails to do what the Gospel asks of us, something will fill the vacuum created by our absence. And I can guarantee this: We will not like what fills the vacuum.
Honestly, the denial on our parts sucks the life out of me. And yet we will go on and on about our foes, the way the government does things we don’t like, or the next moral truth to come under assault.
We talk about our nation being a Christian one, but in truth, we’re Christian in name only. If we’re not living the Gospel, then of course everything will go to hell. Why would we be surprised at that?
Do we still believe that Jesus changes lives? Do we believe that Jesus is the answer to all of life’s issues? Then we better stop living as if we don’t.
Tags: Abortion, Counterculture, Counting the Cost, Culture War, Discipleship, Gospel, Government, Homosexuality, Islam, Living for Jesus, Muslims, PovertyRelated posts
Equipping the Saints: The Synergy of Spirit & Word
August 31, 2009
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Apologetics, Charismatic, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Discernment, Evangelism, Godhead, Godly Character, Maturity, Obedience, Oddities, Prayerfulness, Relevance, The Holy Spirit Feedback : 11 comments
It wasn’t the best of mornings when you get down to it.
My wife had an appointment scheduled that put her on edge because it had the potential to determine the course of the rest of her life. Jangly nerves and a tremor in her voice all said, “I really need you to pay attention to me right now.”
My son, watching his summer vacation slipping away, fell into that desperate state of attempting to pack as much living into five days as was humanly possible. Flubber had nothing on the kid. He was bouncing around the house begging for things to do, his sole mission to get me to pay attention to him right now.
Meanwhile, I’d awakened to a malfunctioning Internet connection and a deadline to meet. As the materials had to be emailed, that posed a bit of a dilemma. With my IT background, I normally don’t blanch when tech things go awry. But after some computer finagling, I came to the terrible realization that it was nothing on my end that I could correct; my ISP was down, no matter what the blinking lights on the modem said. It was the kind of situation I needed to deal with right now if I was to make my deadline.
And right at that moment of stark tech realization, kid yelling, wife anxious, the doorbell rang.
“Dad, there’s two people standing at the door,” my son added to his tirade.
I knew in that second exactly who it was.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses.
While that’s enough to start some people hyperventilating, I greatly enjoy talking to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I know their theology very well, know what verses to share with them out of their own (flawed) New World Translation bible, and generally throw a box full of monkey wrenches into the cogs of their apologetics. In short, I know exactly what to say to them. And I do it in a very neighborly and loving way.
Most times, that is.
Normally, I would invite them in, but the hyperactive son and the anxious wife who had to leave for her appointment in a few minutes did not make for the best environment. So I offered to have them sit down on our front porch in our three porch chairs—except two of the three chairs seemed to have gone missing.
So we stood around. Ugh.
I then began to commit a series of errors. Instead of steering the conversation toward the divinity of Jesus (as the JWs believe Jesus is a created being, the archangel Michael), I let myself get dragged to the end of that discussion prematurely, as we somehow jumped right to the Trinity, which requires nearly a full overview of Scripture to present accurately (as the JWs do well at dismantling piecemeal Scriptures on the Trinity, especially when presented standing around on someone’s front porch). When I attempted to go back to the issue of Jesus’ divinity, I asked for the junior JW’s New World Translation and immediately realized I couldn’t read it; the words were too small. This meant going to find either of the two pair of reading glasses I now own—of course, both eluded me. Then, I got the “brilliant” idea while looking for my glasses to pull out my Aland Greek New Testament in case we stumbled into differences between the NWT and the genuine text. Five minutes later, I think, I got back outside, hoping to talk more about the tirpartite nature of man and how it reflects the Trinitarian nature of God, but somehow I spent most of that time thumbing my way through my Greek NT and not enough concentrating on the tripartite explanation. Meanwhile, the truth of Jesus’ divinity was receding into the murky past of the conversation. At this point, my wife informed us that she must leave and the JWs’ car was blocking our driveway. Seeing this as the perfect out, the senior JW said it was obvious they and I were at completely different places and were never going to come to any agreement on anything, so so long, buh-bye.
And with that, there was no joy in Mudville; mighty Casey had struck out.
The postmortem of this moment doesn’t need the team from CSI to enunciate what went wrong. Anyone want to venture the answer?
It wasn’t that I was stressed by the events of the morning.
It wasn’t the time crunch or the blocked driveway.
It wasn’t an inadequate knowledge of the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
And it wasn’t an inadequate knowledge of Christian doctrine.
What made the morning less than stellar was that I left the Holy Spirit out of that golden opportunity.
We’ve been talking for the last few weeks about what it’s going to take to get the American Church educated in the deep truths of the Faith, but what I want to add right now is that all the Bible-learnin’ in the world is pointless without the Holy Spirit to pull it all together and make it scintillate in our spirits.
I know plenty of Christians who can handle the Bible well. I know plenty of Christians who claim to know the voice of the Holy Spirit. But the kind of Christian I rarely meet is the one who puts both together.
You have on one side the intellectuals with their systematic theologies who could mount an apologetic that rolls like thunder but are tone deaf when it comes to listening to instructions from the Holy Spirit. On the other side are the charismatics who are always talking about the revelation they’re receiving by the Holy Spirit but who will search for hours if you ask them to locate the Book of Hezekiah in their Bibles.
My problem that August morning was that I didn’t ask the Holy Spirit to take charge of the time and guide me His way. I barged ahead like one of those deaf intellectuals, smug in my learnin’.
If we’re to make a difference in the education of Christians in America, we have got to start bridging the gap between the word of God and the Spirit of God. Because in truth, the only gap that exists in that gapless relationship occurs because of you and me. We’re the problem. The Spirit and the Scriptures are perfect.
And so I ask, what churches out there are teaching people how to listen to the Holy Spirit when it comes to correctly handling the Scriptures?
Because it doesn’t work if we know the Bible but can’t hear the voice of the Spirit tell us how to understand and use it. And it doesn’t work if charismatics go on and on about their spiritual gifts but then don’t give the Spirit of God the fodder of His learned word to work from.
If you are in a church that does a great job teaching the Bible but not listening to the Spirit, then you may be getting only part of the story. And chances are, your use of the Bible in those cases when you really need it are going to fall under the label of “the flesh,” and your effectiveness will be diminished. Likewise, if you are in a charismatic church that teaches how to hear the Holy Spirit, yet the average person can’t string together five verses to show why Jesus is God, then you are not putting it all together, either.
If we are to be effective ministers of the Gospel, we have to rely on the voice of the Spirit to lead us in all situations, especially in how to correctly handle the Bible. And we have got to ensure we know the Bible if we are to give the Holy Spirit living in us the free access to the discipline of our study.
Jesus didn’t drop Biblical knowledge into the heads of the disciples at Pentecost. He made what was already there more clear and more transformational. The Spirit brought to mind the time those men had shared with Jesus and amplified the Savior’s teachings. The Spirit made use of what had already been implanted.
And so it must be with us. It’s not enough to know the Bible or say we have the Spirit living in us. Unless we learn the synergy of the Spirit and the word (and—unlike me—ALWAYS rely on it), we’re going to whiff again and again.
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Christian Education, Discipleship, Evangelism, Holy Spirit, Jehovah's Witnesses, Listening, Listening to the Holy Spirit, Power Evangelism
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