Archives For Food for Thought

Something challenging to get you thinking.

A Word to Graduating Seniors

May 24, 2013 — Leave a comment

5.24.13Graduating high school is an incredible rite of passage, a marker on your journey of development that signals that you are casting off the last vestiges of childhood and beginning to step out on your own into adulthood. This transition from childhood to adulthood is not automatic. You don’t naturally begin to act like an adult when you turn 18, or 21, or 30. (That’s why you see some 35-year-olds with the maturity of a 16-year-old).

Above all, adulthood is a choice. You’ll start acting like an adult when you choose to do so. As the apostle Paul so aptly put it, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:12). To fully transition from childhood to adulthood, here are five transitions you’ll need to make, the transitions from:

1. Decisions based on wants to decisions based on wisdom. As a child, you make decisions based on what you want, nothing more. As adult, you’ll realize that sometimes what you want isn’t the best thing for you. True adults make decisions based on wisdom, not just wants.

2. Serving yourself to serving others. You’re born with an innate pull to serve yourself. You didn’t have to do anything to cultivate it. As an adult, you’ll take up the battle with your own selfishness and look to serve others, not just yourself. If you want any chance at being a good spouse and parent, you have to win this battle.

3. Externally motivated to internally motivated. Up to now you’ve had your parents holding your hand, telling you what to do. You’ve had teachers to poke and prod you to learn. As an adult, that fire has to come from within. You’ll find the people interested in your development drop off dramatically. You need to cultivate an inner motivation to learn and grow and achieve, because no one else will do it for you.

4. Living for the moment to living for a legacy. Life as a child is all about the moment: the next show, the next game, the next weekend. As an adult, you will care not just about the moment, but about leaving a legacy that will endure long after you’re gone. If you truly live for a legacy, it will change everything about how you make decisions.

5. A life of pleasure to a life of purpose. If you settle for it, this life will medicate you with low doses of pleasure that will numb you through the greatest years of your life. If you live life only to have fun, then you’re still a child. Adults desire to live a life of purpose. That’s what drives our willingness to work hard and sacrifice. Be a part of something greater than yourself.

Congratulations on transitioning from high school to college. May you make the transition from childhood to adulthood as well.

QUESTION: What other advice would you give graduating seniors?

image courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Dealing with Unspeakable Tragedy

May 22, 2013 — 1 Comment
5.23.13Recently my town suffered a devastating loss as two young boys were killed in a tragic ATV accident. North of us friends and families in Oklahoma are walking through the utter devastation of an F-5 tornado. For those of you with kids, I know many of them might be asking difficult questions: Why did they have to die? Are they in heaven? Why did God let this happen?
As a parent and as a Christian, there is simply no easy way to answer these questions. As you talk with your children about these tragic incidents, here are a few helpful things to remember:
  • Be authentic. If you’re struggling with this tragic event, let them know it. Don’t feel like you have to have it all together for their sake. Some events are simply too overwhelming to handle easily.
  • Don’t try and give a pat answer. This isn’t the time to recite a trite Bible verse and be done with it. Acknowledge the pain of the loss.
  • Remember that we live in a broken world where tragedies happen. Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time your child encounters tragedy. This is one of the unfortunate effects of sin in the world.
  • Reaffirm that God is in control. We may never know why this happened, but that doesn’t change that God is ultimately in control. His ways are higher than ours. We may not understand it or like it at times, but God is still in control of everything that happens.
  • The eternal salvation of those lost are in God’s hands, not ours. The question many of your older children will ask is, “Are they in heaven?” The short answer is, “We don’t know.” That’s between them and God.
  • Pray. Spend time praying for the affected families and those left behind. Pray with your children for them.
  • Support the families. Long after our attention moves onto something else, the affected families will still bear the scars of this tragic event. For those that personally know them, support them. Be there for them. Healing from this event will take years, not months.
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Committee on Committee on Committees

May 20, 2013 — 8 Comments

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERAGrowing up Baptist, I was entranced by the abundance of committees that seemed to cover every facet of church life. A committee for flowers? Check. A hostess committee? Check. (Only later did I realize that this committee had nothing to do with a favorite brand of comfort foods). But one committee always intrigued me with its deeply authoritative and far-reaching title: the committee on committees.

This was the pinnacle. This was the magical smoke-filled back room committee where the real power was exerted. Who wanted to be on something lame like the properties committee when you could be on the committee on committees? This committee was the supreme power, the Council of Elrond of Baptist churches.

As I grew a little older, my typical male aspirations of world domination played itself out in my Baptist world, and I created a new, fictitious, uber-powerful committee that would rule all committees: the Committee on Committee on Committees. This highly secretive committee would wield uncontrolled power to install puppet committees throughout the church.

Growing up in a typical Baptist church, here are some of the new committees that the Committee on Committee on Committees would install:

  • The Surly Greeter Committee – This committee would ensure that the meanest, poutiest, surliest members (and oldest, preferably) would greet at the front doors. They would set an acceptably dour mood for the service.
  • The Pew Kicker Committee – This committee would deputize one angry couple a week to go throughout the sanctuary and kick guests out of their seats, claiming that they were sitting in their row. They would ensure that the pecking order of seniority remained intact.
  • The Temperature Complaining Committee – This committee would be made exclusively of senior ladies who would be strategically placed throughout the sanctuary to loudly complain that the temperature was too cold (no matter what the actual temperature).
  • The Baby Screaming Committee – This committee would commission new moms to keep their babies out of the nursery and bring them into the service, preferably fussy. These moms would assume that everyone would love to watch and hear this new, screaming bundle of joy for an hour.
  • The Sleeping Choir Member Committee – This committee would enlist at least one choir member per service to fall asleep (noticeably) during the pastor’s sermon. The closer they sat directly behind the pastor, the better.
  • The Clothing Diva Committee – This committee would be an added bonus to the Baptist church. This committee would be formed exclusively of median aged wives and moms who think each Sunday service is an opportunity to dress for the Kentucky Derby. Their over-the-top and look-at-me outfits would ensure that people have someone to talk about at lunch.

QUESTION: What new committees would you install for the typical church?

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Better Before Bigger

May 8, 2013 — 3 Comments

5.8.13There’s an incredible quote I want to share from Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-a. But first let me give you the back story. As Andy Stanley tells it, in the 1990s there was a company called Boston Chicken, which ended up becoming Boston Market. This was Chick-fil-a’s first direct competitor, another major brand of a chicken-sandwiches-only restaurant.

Boston Market had huge expansion plans, with the goal of having $1 billion in sales by the year 2000. They were fast-expanding and aggressive. Naturally, the executives at Chick-fil-a were nervous about the new threat, a direct competitor in their market space. Conversations began around this threat, and Chick-fil-a’s initial response was centered on how to grow bigger, how to grow faster to compete with Boston Market.

The whole thing culminated in a board room at Chick-fil-a headquarters, with all the VPs and Marketing people trying to figure out how to get bigger, faster. At the head of the table was Truett Cathy, quiet and seemingly disengaged from the whole conversation. Then out of the blue, Truett Cathy began banging his fists on the table until he had everyone’s attention. What he said next is the point of this whole post.

Cathy said, “Gentlemen, I am sick and tired of hearing you talk about us getting bigger. What we need to be talking about is how to get better. If we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger.” That statement changed the whole course of the conversation at Chick-fil-a headquarters. The result? In the year 2000 (when Boston Market wanted to reach $1 billion in sales), Boston Market filed for bankruptcy, and Chick-fil-a reached $1 billion in sales for the first time.

Why? Because Boston Market focused on getting bigger, while Chick-fil-a focused on getting better. Better before bigger.

Where in your life, in your business, are you tempted to focus on bigger before better? If you focus on making it better, it will naturally become bigger.

If you enjoyed this nugget of truth, then you experienced a taste of what the Chick-fil-a Leadercast will be like this Friday. Andy Stanley will be one of the headline speakers. If you can attend, you’ll be glad you did! Find a location here.

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The False Choice Between Calvinism and Arminianism

May 2, 2013 — 8 Comments

AXRJP4Am I a Calvinist or an Arminian? Yes. And life is great here above the fray. Southern Baptists are being torn apart by the classic Calvinism debate. Our seminaries are in separate camps, our leaders are divided and throwing resolutions at each other. College and seminary presidents are weeding out professors that don’t agree with their particular doctrine. Your theological view on salvation is becoming a litmus test that trumps all others.

The tragedy is that the Calvinism vs. Arminian debate presents us with a false choice (or in classical logic terms, a ‘false dichotomy’). In this debate, salvation is either all God or all man. The problem is that both camps point to Scripture for their beliefs. And both sides are right.

For years, I avoided the debate. Then I began to see in Scripture that God’s sovereignty vs. man’s choice wasn’t an “either/or,” it was a “both/and.” And here’s the illustration that captured the essence of that truth for me. Once I thought of this (if you’re in the Arminian camp) or God sovereignly revealed it to me (if you’re in the Calvinist camp), I was at peace with the issue.

It’s the incarnation of Jesus Christ. When Jesus came to earth, was he God or man? The first few centuries of believers heavily debated that. Was he God that just looked like a man, or was he merely a man with God-like powers? After centuries of debate, here’s what Christianity concluded: Jesus was both. Not 50/50 both, but 100/100 both. He was fully God and fully man. In God’s equation, 100% plus 100% equals 100%. We can’t fully understand it, but we accept it.

I believe God exercises the same principle in salvation. Is salvation man’s choice or God’s sovereignty? Yes. It’s both. It doesn’t have to be an either/or. It can be both, side-by-side. I believe that salvation is 100% man’s choice and 100% God’s sovereignty, in the same way that I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was 100% man and 100% God. Although I cannot fully understand it, I accept it.

Southern Baptists, if we can come to a peace about this issue, and if we begin to focus on the issues that matter (like lostness), how much more will our Heavenly Father be pleased with us? The current Calvinism debate is nothing but sideways energy meant to distract us from the task at hand, fulfilling the Great Commission.

Let’s be better than this. Let’s finish what we were left here to do. Salvation is 100% man’s choice and 100% God’s sovereignty. That’s what I’ve lived and breathed for the past decade, and my soul is at perfect peace. I can now focus on partnering with God to influence souls for Christ. May we all do the same.

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My Test Drive with Prius Theology

May 1, 2013 — Leave a comment

5.1.13When the Toyota Prius hit the market in 2000, the world was introduced to the idea of hybrid technology: gas and electricity both used to power a car. In that same year, a just-as-revolutionary hybrid theology began to take shape in my heart. In my last two posts (here and here), I chronicled by journey from Arminianism to the depths of hyper-Calvinism.

After I began my road to redemption, I tried to avoid the topic. I couldn’t make sense of the issue. It made my brain hurt. When I walked down the road of Calvinism, all I could see was God’s sovereignty in Scripture (see Romans 8:29, Romans 9:15-16, Ephesians 1:4-5). Once I backed away, I began to see man’s choice just as clearly (see Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15, 2 Samuel 24:12, Proverbs 8:10, John 7:17, James 4:4).

I asked, “If man doesn’t have a choice, if everything is predestined, then why would God constantly give mankind the option to choose? At best it would be hypocritical, at worst it would be downright cruel for God to dangle choice in front of man when he has no say in the matter.” See? Doesn’t your brain hurt now?

I could point to Scripture that supported both sides. I saw God’s sovereignty and I saw man’s choice. I just couldn’t reconcile them. Whenever someone would debate the issue, they would have to dance around the Scriptures that supported the opposing idea. It was tiring. When asked to do Bible studies, I would intentionally avoid Scriptures that spoke to the debate because I didn’t quite have my personal theology reconciled yet.

Over the next few years, my hybrid theology began to take shape as I read Scriptures that seemed to have both angles side-by-side. In Philippians 2:12-13, Paul tells us, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Paul tells us to work out our salvation (man’s will) while stating that it is God who works in us (God’s sovereignty).

Or how about Jesus himself in John 6:65, “He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.‘” We come to God (man’s will), but God has to enable us first (God’s sovereignty). While this would indicate that one precedes the other, it doesn’t deny the existence of the other.

With verses such as these, I began to consider the notion that perhaps both were true. Although the two extremes seemed irreconcilable, they both had support in Scripture. It wasn’t until I came to the most obvious illustration found in the New Testament that I truly had a peace with my hybrid theology.

Want to know what illustration tied everything together for me? Well, I guess you’ll have to come back tomorrow then, won’t you? Tomorrow I’ll finish up my thoughts on Calvinism and the false choice Christians are forced to make.

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Calvinism: My Journey There and Back Again (Part 2)

April 30, 2013 — 8 Comments

4.29.13When I left off yesterday, I was heading off to Africa with a armful of John Piper books. Growing up as a classic free-will loving Arminian, I didn’t know how soundly my quaint ideas were about to be crushed under the weight of Scripture. If you’ve ever read a John Piper book, then you know it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. The guy knows his Bible, and he is a passionate Calvinist.

After a few months of reading, I was convinced. I couldn’t argue with that much Scripture. So, living in Africa, I became a Calvinist. I drank in passage after passage of Romans. I relished in the sovereignty of God. Calvinism expanded my small view of God, and I am forever grateful for the much larger picture of God that I gained from the whole experience.

The problem for me was that I couldn’t stop going down the road of Calvinism once I started. If I was going to believe in something, I was going to believe in it all the way. If God truly was sovereign, if everything was predestined, then man’s choice is a farce. Once I started down the road to Calvinism, I couldn’t stop the slide before I ended up at its extreme end: hyper-Calvinism.

The results on my personal life and missionary activities were devastating. I literally lost all motivation to evangelize the lost (the very reason I was sent to Africa). If everything was already predestined, then I was wasting my time. God had already determined who would be saved, and my efforts weren’t going to change anything. When I was in my deepest valley, I was literally immobilized. I had no motivation to go out and do any missionary work. In my mind, it was all a wasted effort. For about six weeks, I didn’t pray. I didn’t have a quiet time. I was so overwhelmed by God’s sovereignty and my inability to help determine anyone’s salvation that I was paralyzed. I had the Scripture to back me up. I just didn’t have any practical motivation to go out and waste my time in the useless farce of personal evangelism. Not a good place for a full-time professional missionary to be at.

After about six weeks, I’d had enough. I made a deal with God. Here’s the gist of what I said, “God, I can’t take it anymore. I can’t live like this. I’ve got entire passages in Scripture that scream predestination at me, but it’s taken away all practical motivation for me to share the gospel with anyone. God, I’ll let you fix my theology when I’m in heaven, but while I’m here on earth, I’ve got to believe that I’ve got some skin in the game. I’ve got to believe that my efforts can have an effect on the salvation of others, if I’m going to survive here in Africa as a missionary.”

That prayer began my road to redemption, which I’ll share about in my next post. If you think it led me back to be a classic Arminian, think again.

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Calvinism: My Journey There and Back Again (Part 1)

April 29, 2013 — 4 Comments

4.29.13It’s Calvinism week here at mtvpastor, where I’m going to weigh in on the growing controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention. To those who don’t know about the Calvinism debate: don’t worry, you’re not missing much. To those of you caught up in the hype and wonder why I’m choosing now to write about it: it’s already been predestined that I would write about it today, so why fight it?

A good controversy like this can’t be settled in one post, so I’ll be sharing fourteen years of thoughts over the next few posts. To start, I want to share with my story. For me Calvinism isn’t some esoteric debate, it’s something I struggled with for years before coming to a peace about it. Alas, let the saga begin:

Growing up in church as a kid, I was naturally an Arminian (the theological belief that we have a choice in our salvation). There was no overt debate about it, that’s just all I ever knew. It made sense to me; we had a choice about many other things in life, why not salvation? Wasn’t that the whole point of preachers working up a sweat and pleading with people to walk down the aisle? If it was all predestined, then why all the effort? I would hear adults use variations of the argument, “God loved us so much that he gave us free will.” Sounded solid to me. I never questioned it.

Fast forward several years. I graduated college and was in training with 120 other college grads for a two-year missionary stint overseas. It was a blast. What I didn’t know was that a majority of the other trainees had just gotten back from Passion Conferences and were still hopped up on John Piper. Suddenly, the classic Arminian vs. Calvinism (the theological belief that God has already predestined who will be saved) debate revved back up. To counter my suddenly weak-sounding arguments of logic, the Calvinist camp had Scripture. Lots of it. I would pull a VBS verse here or there. They would counter with Romans 9-11. My arguments were crushed.

Curious about the whole debate, I left for the mission field with a few Piper books under my arm. Little did I know the quantum world shift I was about to experience. Come back tomorrow to see just how far down the yellow brick road I went . . .

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Why Your Church is Like Rotten Tomatoes

April 24, 2013 — Leave a comment

Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2009.One of my favorite apps on my phone is Flixster, which lets me view upcoming movies and trailers. More importantly, before I make the decision on whether to watch the movie, I look at the Rotten Tomatoes score, a percentage of how many other users liked the movie. More than the critical reviews, I know that if other users like the movie, I probably will too.

Why is this important for the church? Because 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising, up 18% since 2007. Online consumer reviews are the second most trusted source of brand information with a 70% trust rating, up 15% since 2008. Television ads were trusted by only 47%, down 24% since 2009 (Nielsen, April 2012).

I’ve worked at churches before I that I wouldn’t have attended if I wasn’t employed by them. How many of my friends did I invite there? None. A church can have a ton of formal advertising, but word of mouth trumps it every time. Growing a church is a lot simpler than pastors and theologians make it out to be. The number one way to grow your church in today’s society is to create a church environment that your members enjoy enough that they’ll naturally tell their circle of influence about it, and to create a culture where your members have the mindset to reach out (as opposed to simply reaching in).

We’ve seen this play out at Mt Vernon. Over the past year and a half that I’ve been pastor, 99% of our growth have been family and friends of existing members. Virtually every time our staff discusses a new guest, we discuss the close friend or family member who brought them. Why? Because people trust recommendations of family and friends above all other forms of advertising. A member loves our church enough to bring her mom, who brings her close friend, who tells everyone at work. We’ve grown roughly 20% over the past year, with no formal advertising, no mass mailers, no door-to-door campaigns. It’s simply word of mouth.

The winds of culture are changing. We can continue to fight against it, or find a way to harness the power of it to see the Kingdom advance.

QUESTION: What is your church’s Rotten Tomatoes score? (It’s more important than you think)

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Why Would a Good God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People?

April 19, 2013 — 1 Comment

Runners continue to run towards the finish line as an explosion erupts at the finish line of the Boston MarathonAt the time of this writing, one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing is dead, with the other one on the run. Another stark reminder of the tragedy that happened so recently.

The bigger question many ask is this, “If God was such a good God, why would he allow bad things to happen to good people?” It’s easy to see the brokenness of the world around us and be overwhelmed. That inner sense of right and wrong given to us by our Creator screams for justice. It’s natural for us to wonder why God doesn’t put a stop to it. Is he cruel? Does he care? Is he powerless? Does he care?

Jesus gives us a clue to answer in a story about weeds. It’s a long passage, but well worth the read:

24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus goes on to explain the illustration to his disciples, and in the explanation we discover why God allows evil to fester in the world:

37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. Matthew 13:37-41

Here’s the truth: the weeds represent everything that causes sin and all who do evil (verse 41). So, why would a good God allow evil to flourish? Look back at verse 29. Because the weeds (sin) and the wheat (humanity) are so intermixed, that to destroy one, he’d have to destroy the other.

The mistake we make is to think that evil is something separate from us, something easily wiped away if God would only do it. The reality is something darker. When sin entered the world, it infected all of creation, including humanity. We’re now fused together. So, here’s why evil exists: God allows evil to exist because to destroy evil He would have to destroy humanity.

Does God hate sin? Yes. Does God love humanity? Yes. So, he allows humanity to exist a little while longer, even with the scourge of sin, out of love, to give us a chance to repent. There will be a day when sin is destroyed, when God comes to judge the world. Until then, evil will exist.

QUESTION: Does this interpretation help your understanding of the problem of evil?

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