Death, Michael Jackson, and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

I, like many other red-blooded humans, watched a good portion of Michael Jackson’s memorial service.  I have no special affinity for Michael Jackson, but I figured that a cultural event of this magnitude was worth paying at least a little bit of attention to.

I’ll admit that there was much about watching the memorial service that was strange.  I have been fortunate enough in my young life to have very limited experience with death.  In fact, though I’m a pretty emotional person, I don’t know that I have ever cried at a funeral.  I say that not to be callous, but rather to say that the funerals I have attended have been either for a) people I did not have a strong bond with, or b) people who were very old and who passed peacefully. As mentioned, I obviously didn’t have a relationship with the King of Pop, nor did I follow his career very closely, thus while I hurt deeply for those who expressed genuine grief in their speeches, I myself was emotionally unmoved.

What I found most strange about the memorial, however, was the role that religious expression played in both the ceremony and the comments of those watching on-line at cnn.com as I was. References to God were found throughout the ceremony, despite the fact that the family had been unable to decide which faith tradition would guide the service. Furthermore, on the Facebook feed that served as a sidebar to the actual webcast, there were innumerable references to Jackson “being in a better place”, “being in heaven”, “being with God”, and there were repeated other references to God, God’s goodness, Jesus, and heaven.  Stevie Wonder most overtly speculated about Jackson’s posthumous whereabouts as he started to play the piano, saying,

“This is a moment that I wished that I didn’t live to see come. But as much that I can say that and mean it, I do know that God is good. And I do know that as much as we may feel—and we do—that we need Michael here with us, God must have needed him far more.”

Comments like that were echoed by emotional Facebookers, whose comments seemed to indicate that they were both grieved at Jackson’s death, and confident that he was now in heaven.

I found all of this religiosity quite striking, especially given the fact that no one is really sure what Jackson’s personal religious beliefs were. While many religious groups claim some measure of connection to Jackson, there is little public evidence to suggest that spirituality was a particularly important aspect of his life. Furthermore, perhaps I am being cynical (maybe even judgmental), but I at least wonder about the sincerity of the spirituality of the many who posted God-laced comments on the Facebook newsfeed during the funeral.  I, of course, am in no place to make final judgments about those people, and I am certainly not meaning to speculate on MJ’s eternal destination. At the end of the day, most all of us are left simply to wonder about Michael’s spirituality and any sort of pre-death connection to Jesus that may have existed.

As I watched the funeral, listened to speeches, and read comments from strangers, I was first reminded of the effect that death has on our spirituality. The most ardent of atheists will have those at his or her funeral that sincerely believe they are in “a better place”. I was then reminded of the subtle yet dominant belief system in America which allows us to make those sorts of statements.  The belief system is the closest thing to a civil religion that exists in America, and it is called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The term Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD from here on out) was first coined by Christian Smith, who is currently a professor of Sociology at Notre Dame University. In his book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Life of America’s Teenagers, Smith argued that MTD most accurately described the spirituality of teenagers in America. From his website:

“The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American teenagers, the actual professed religion of most young adults, whether they’re being raised in Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, or Jewish homes, is what he called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. What this means is that although many teens believe in God and go to church regularly, they end up defining belief in very vague and subjective terms, such as, God exists, He’s there when we need him, He wants us to be happy, The purpose of life is to feel good, Good people go to heaven, and so forth.”

I agree with Smith, that this accurately describes the spiritual beliefs of many “religious” or even “Christian” teenagers, but I would also suggest (as others have) that the spiritual beliefs of many adults in America are not much different.

Another article on the subject I read stated that, in general, MTDs believe the following:

• God exists and has created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

• God wants people to be good and nice to each other and to be moral, as taught in the Bible and most world religions.

• The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

• God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when needed for a problem.

• Good people will go to heaven when they die.

Obviously, some of these beliefs are good (I think God favors us being nice to each other…I remember reading something about loving your neighbor), and others are highly problematic (if only good people go to heaven when they die, we’re all screwed). MTD is convenient in that it denies the reality of sin, it does not require any sort of atonement, there is no obejective standard by which any one is measured, there are no absolutes (only perspectives), it is universalistic soteriologically (everyone goes to heaven, because everyone, in the eyes of those who love them, is good) and the whole thing is so vague that there is no concept of accountability, morality, spiritual growth, etc.  It is the dangerous offspring of postmodernism (not that postmodernism is necessarily bad) and it appears also to be an over-corrective to fundamentalism. It also reflects our societal tendency to base our spiritual beliefs on what “seems right to us” rather than on any higher authority or any sense of historicity, but that is another post for another day.

Many of the comments I heard in both the broadcast and the Facebook comments during the MJ memorial, reflected MTD: Of course there was much talk of heaven, there was talk of how MJ was a good person, and there was grief-inspired crying out to God. In reflecting MTD these comments reflected how spiritually lost we are as a society.  Death seems to reveal the extent of our lostness.  I have seen this even in my own family.  I remember when my grandfather (a Romcan Catholic) passed away, my mother asked me to suggest a Bible passage to be read at his funeral.  I asked her if she had anything in mind, and my mother, who has attended church faithfully for almost her entire life replied, “Something that will make him go to heaven.” I thought about reading her Hebrews 9:27 or Ephesians 2:8-9 and explaining that his salvation had already been determined, but I thought better of it. The notion that the Bible passage that is read at a person’s funeral would affect his or her salvation can, um, creatively fit in MTD, but it certainly doesn’t fit in Biblical Christianity.

The implications of the prevalence of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are of course great, and I won’t get into them in much great depth here.  At the risk of being pigeon-holed by those who don’t know me personally, I will say that MTD should be of grave concern for Christians because it inoculates people to the gospel of Jesus Christ, in that it tricks people into believing they are Christians when in fact they are not.  It turns spirituality into a sort of self-help program, all the while denying sin, redemption, judgment, hell, and the good news of God’s free gift of grace, while providing a sense of false spiritual comfort in one’s ”lostness”.

As it was in the case of Michael Jackson, death is often unexpected and tragic.  It often stirs us spirituality and heightens our awareness of the reality that what is seen is not all that exists.  My hope and prayer would be that we as a people would be inclined not to be content with MTD, nor to run to some sort of dry, dusty, judgmental and lifeless religion, but instead to cling to the cross of Christ, and remember that it is the cross, not our fuzzy feelings about God nor our supposed good works, that gives us true hope for heaven.

Our Last Night at Seven24

The above pictures were taken this last Sunday night, the top one at about 8:00, the bottom one at about 11:00.

For those who don’t know, I’ve spent the last three years of my life as the College Pastor at New Song Community Church.  About six month into my tenure (on February 17, 2007, to be exact), we canned the Thursday night college Bible study that had been in place when I arrived and started Seven24, a Sunday night worship service for 18-30 year olds. This last Sunday night was my last Sunday with the group, as the term of my employment has come up and the church lacks the funds to keep me on (and with my wife starting graduate school at USC staying would have been challenging anyway).

The room pictured above is the room where we held our service.  We’d start around 7:30, finish around 9:00, and by about 10:00 the room would be cleaned up and most everyone would have gone to In n’ Out. Sometimes, after a service, and after most everyone had left I’d go back into the now quiet and deserted room and just sit on the stage.  There was something about sitting in that room–the room that an hour earlier had been buzzing with activity and full of the sound of 90+ people worshiping God that was now eerily quiet, that I found very peaceful. This wasn’t something I did often, nor would I sit there very long when I did, but last Sunday night it seemed especially appropriate. This time there were still a few people left in the room, and it was surreal sitting there knowing that I would likely never sit there again.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of the fact that my time at Seven24 is over.  On Sunday I finished my sermon, walked to the side of the room to sing the final song, and as everyone was rising to their feet and congregating in the front and center part of the room and my wife came over and gave me a hug, I completely broke down.  The reality that this was my last Seven24 hit me suddenly and the floodgates opened. I could try to sum up what I was feeling in that moment, but I don’t think my words could do it justice.  Suffice to say it is hard to come to grips with leaving people that I love and leaving a ministry that I had worked so hard to build in the face of many obstacles. After the song I closed the service in prayer, praying Colossians 1:9-12 as a prayer of blessing over the group, and then everyone present crowded around Christie and I and prayed for us.  It was a powerful time, and we felt the love of our community in a profound way.

After that we spent the next two hours hanging out with people, giving lots of hugs, shedding a few tears, and hearing many kind and gracious words from our friends who shared with us ways that God had used us to impact their lives. It was a night I will not soon forget. Finally, at a little bit past 11, once just about everyone else had left, we turned off the lights, walked out to the parking lot and drove away.  Christie asked how I was feeling, and I fought back tears as I tried to articulate an answer. And just like that, a chapter in our lives was closed, and we drove “home” to Pasadena, knowing that a new chapter was beginning.

While I am sad for many reasons, there are several conditions surrounding our departure from Seven24 that make me very happy.  I am leaving with the ministry in a good, healthy place, and I am leaving with nothing but positive relationships with those that I worked with. It’s nice to move on knowing that Seven24 is going to continue. I said on Sunday night that I believe Seven24’s best days are still to come, and I believe that with all of my heart. Additionally, I am leaving with many fond memories and a heart filled with gratitude towards God for all that he accomplished in my time at New Song.

For now, Christie and I are getting settled in Pasadena. I’m taking 12-units at Fuller, and she is in the fourth week of the Occupational Therapy master’s program at USC. I am going to be out of paid staff church work for a little while, but we are both excited about being a part of church “from the other side” for a brief season.  We’ll more than likely land at Bel Air Pres, the church we went to in college, but we’ll devote the next three or four weeks to trying to few different churches before we dive in somewhere.  We are both looking forward to plugging in and hopefully enriching the ministry of whatever church we land at.

I suppose that is all for now.  The reality that this next chapter has started is slowly begining to set in. I know I speak for Christie and myself when I say that we are very thankful for the love, support, and prayers of our New Song family, and we are grateful to God for the opportunity to be a part of Seven24 for as long as we were.

Irreverent Silly Myths (Why Matt Chandler is awesome)

This video is brilliant, and it shows why I listen to Matt Chandler every chance I get.  Chandler’s point here served as the inspiration for one of the major points of my talk this last Sunday at Seven24 about the death and resurrection of Jesus. I’d write more, but alas, it’s finals week.  Enjoy the video (and better yet, subscribe to Matt Chandler’s podcast, The Village Church, and listen to him)”

No Democrats at Liberty?

I realize I’m a bit late in commenting about this story, but I wanted to write a quick blog post about it.

As you may or may not have heard, Liberty University, a private, conservative, Christian college in Virgina founded by the late Jerry Falwell, has revoked their official recognition of its on-campus Young Democrats club, claiming that the club’s “parent organization stands against the conservative Christian school’s moral principles” . Liberty specifically cited the Democratic Party’s support of abortion rights and gay-marriage as examples. The club can now no longer meet on campus and is no longer eligible for any sort of school funding.

I am not very personally familiar with Liberty University, but I have obviously heard of Jerry Falwell, and I have a basic understanding of what the university stands for.  I have not personally met anyone on staff or faculty at Liberty, and thus in the interest of trying to be fair-minded, I will give those behind this decision the benefit of the doubt, and presume that they are honest people handling this situation according to their conscience.

That being said, I am concerned about this decision for a number of reasons, and I I believe it raises some important questions. I should preface this by saying that while I am moderately interested in political issues, I have never at any time in my adult life identified myself with a political party. Now, my concerns:

1) This reinforces the stereotype that Christians hold a blind allegiance to the Republican Party. In disallowing campus Democrats but allowing campus Republicans, Liberty is furthering its historic endorsement of conservative politics, and furthering the stereotype that all Christians are Republicans.  Indeed, many Christians are Republicans, but thankfully many Bible-believing Christians are beginning to see what has been plainly true for decades: the party platforms of both major political parties, while having some value, each contain positions that are biblically indefensible.  More on this later. Perhaps a more biblically faithful way of promoting secular politics on campus would be to create clubs or societies that can sponsor discussions and debates about particular issues.  In that sort of setting people could be educated about issues without one political party being officially endorsed. This sort of decision also carries with it the appearance of a judgmental spirit. Whether or not such a spirit actually exists is irrelevant…the appearance is enough.

2) It stifles free speech. Liberty is already widely known for its prevention of free speech on its campus.  Kevin Roose, a Brown student who spent some time as a student at Liberty, said, “Liberty stifles free speech by censoring its student newspaper, refusing to give tenure to its faculty, and suppressing students who wish to speak out.” The fact is, the Christian faith must be able to win when presented alongside competing ideologies within the marketplace of ideas.  It cannot be made most prominent in society by silencing dissent. Actions like this, in my view, indicate fear from those in power, rather than confidence in convictions by those in power. It reeks of Constantinianism, and the church is still feeling the negative effects of that era. The church functions best when it is on the margins, anyways.

3) It alienates those who hold differing views. I have used this logic before when talking with peers about issues like evolution.  The continuous crusade that many Christians are on to fight evolutionary theory (and the downright silly propaganda that accompanies it…thank you, Ben Stein), I am convinced, does more harm than good.  It broadcasts to the unbelieving world that they cannot believe in evolution and still be a Christian, to which, I have to imagine, those with a working knowledge of evolution respond by keeping their distance from all things Christian.  The fact is, people need Jesus, not a  particular theory about how the world came to be.  For that reason (and because I myself am sympathetic to theistic evolution), I don’t waste my time trying to disprove evolution. I’m willing to surrender it in a discussion about God and faith. I just don’t believe that when I get to heaven God is going to ask me how old I think the earth is.

In this instance, the message being sent is that to be a Christian is to be a Republican.  Most intelligent people know that this isn’t true, but I think it would be fair to say that many intelligent people outside of the faith have what little interest they may have in learning more about it stifled by stories like this, which seem to broadcast intolerance. This sort of intolerance hinders the gospel. If for no other reason than that, these sorts of decisions should be avoided.

4) It over-simplifies two complex issues. Those complex issues are, of course, abortion and gay marriage.  I should say here that I consider myself holistically pro-life, which means I am opposed to abortion, the death penalty, war, and virtually any other voluntary taking of human life.  I believe the New Testament supports this position.  Furthermore, I recognize and wholeheartedly affirm what the Bible says about human sexuality, specifically that God’s intention for marriage is one man and one woman.  That being said, these issues have more nuance than we are willing to admit.  The fact is, abortion is an economic issue, and in order to reduce abortions we, as a society, have to be willing to addresss the economic factors that often lead women to make these tragic choices.  In other words, abortion is a social evil that will not be legislated away.  I say all of this because it seems as a society we are divided in that some oppose abortion legislatively yet do little to prevent it (other than picketing) while others support this atrocious practice while also supporting economic policies that do a better job of caring for the poor.  There needs to be a marriage of these two points of view.  As far as gay marriage goes, I will simply say this: gay people do not need to be told they cannot get married.  They need to be told about Jesus.  Our job is to herald the good news that salvation is available through Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit convicts of all sorts of different sins.

And now, a few questions:

1) Is there a “Christian” political party? My answer to this would be a resounding, “no”. I am continuously baffled by the number of smart Christians I meet who swear a deep allegiance to either political party.  It just doesn’t make sense biblically.  As Christians we should be able to speak prophetically to both parties.

2) When will evangelical Christians start scrutinizing the Republican Party like we do the Democrat Party? I am thankful for voices like Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne (among others) that are already doing this.

3) What is the proper Christian response to institutions like Liberty that claim the name of Christ and yet so firmly align themselves with a partisan political ideology? I don’t know. Some combination of rebuke and grace seems appropriate.

Your thoughts?

Our Next Steps

Christie and I finally know what we are doing next.

We have been in limbo for some time, but now the near future is starting to come into focus a little bit.  I’ve had a number of people here in Oceanside ask what we are doing next, so I thought I would write a brief post on here so that anyone who is curious can know what we’ll be up to for the next year or two.

As of now, we have moved out of our apartment, and next week we will be moving into an apartment in Pasadena.  For now Christie is spending a week at home with her family, and I am staying in Oceanside with our good friends Don and Dawn Richie (and I’ll be here until the end of June).  Christie will be starting graduate school in Occupational Therapy at USC on June 15, and her program will run for the next two and a half years.  I am very excited for her, and I know this will be a great opportunity for her to receive training in a field that seems to really suit her gifts and passions.  As I mentioned, I will be staying in Oceanside until the end of June finishing up at New Song and trying to cherish the remaining time I have here.

For the summer, I will be going to school full-time as well once I join Christie in Pasadena.  I interviewed for two different pastoral jobs in the Los Angeles area, but unfortunately I didn’t get either of them.  The first one was a part time gig that I probably would not have accepted had it been offered to me. I made it to the final two, but they told me that they didn’t think I was the right fit for them.  They were good people and I’m sure its a cool church, but I agreed with them.  The second one was a full-time job that I really wanted, and though I made it to the final three (out of more than 100 applicants), I didn’t end up getting the job. Not getting that job was deeply disappointing to me personally and professionally, but after allowing myself a couple of hours to be sad, I’ve tried to let it go and focus on what we have before us. There is actually a third job that I have interviewed for as well, and I should be hearing back about that one fairly soon. Going to school full-time will allow me to finish my Master of Divinity degree by June 2010.

For the time being, we will probably be returning to Bel Air Presbyterian Church and getting involved in their young marrieds ministry, but we may try a few churches in Pasadena.  Of course I will continue looking for a job, and if we find one at a church that appears to be a good fit for us, we will settle in there.  While I am very disappointed that I won’t be in full-time ministry after the end of this month, I know that having a couple of months to slow down, reflect on my experience at Seven24, and be a lay member of a church community will be good for me.

So those are the basics of our plan for the next little while.  Having both of us in school full-time will certainly present its fair share of challenges, but I am confident that we will be able to meet them.  We are, of course, very sad to be leaving Oceanside, but we know that God is calling us forward, and we are excited to see where he leads.

Strong the Ties

Last Saturday, Christie and I had the opportunity to attend the wedding of one of my former roommates, Eric Torrence.  To get there and back we logged a total of 880 miles in the car in one day…err, 24-hour period.  We left Oceanside at 8:30 a.m. and didn’t roll back into the driveway until nearly 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.  

It was totally worth it.  We were only to spend a total of seven hours in Livermore, where the wedding was held, but the time there was priceless.  The hours were filled with conversation and laughter, and it was tough to pull myself away when it was time to leave.

We drove up with our friend Drew, and when we arrived in Livermore we were early enough to be able to hang out with the groom and the groomsmen–many of whom were close friends from college–for an hour or two before the wedding.  Then, it was on to the ceremony and reception, where good times were had by all– the ceremony was beautiful, the wine was good, and the company could not have been better. 

While at the wedding, I was struck by something.  I was struck by the fact that almost every person in attendance that I recognized (which, granted, did not amount to very many people) was from the fraternity that Eric and I were a part of, Alpha Gamma Omega (or was their significant other).  It was powerfully illustrative of the unique bond that exists between those of us who shared the AGO experience while we were at UCLA. Since UCLA we have of course gone our separate ways, and we have become a vocationally diverse group.  Among those represented in attendance at the wedding there was a doctor, an attorney, a high school history teacher, a Ph.D student, a financial planner, and a pastor.  But when we come together its as if we are back in college. 

One of my friends, who was a groomsman, upon hearing that we were planning on driving back that night, practically insisted that we stay the night in the spare bed in his hotel room free of charge.  We were grateful for the offer, but had to decline since I had to be back for church in the morning (and we were moving out of our apartment that afternoon). Upon returning home I sent that friend a brief facebook message thanking him for his willingness to accommodate us for the evening and saying that it had been great seeing him, if only briefly.   He replied, and in part of his reply he said the following:

Even after just a few hours of hanging out, I’m always reminded of how much of a blessing our time at AGO was (and still is).

I couldn’t agree more.

I will be the first to admit that the whole “fraternity” thing is a little goofy.  I certainly could have done without the lenghty meetings, bizarre rituals, and other formalities.  That being said, I must acknowledge the fact that my very best friends in the world are the men that I met at AGO. Aside from my wife, there is no one on the planet whose company I enjoy more than my close friends from the fraternity.  They are brothers, in the truest sense of the word. I am a better man and a more faithful follower of Jesus because of the friendships I have with those men.

Of course the days of sharing meals and living down the hall from one another are long gone, but the friendships that were forged during those years are the type that make life beautiful.

Given my present vocation, I know a lot of college-aged people read my blog.  If you are one of those, I want to ask you the question, what relationships are you investing in right now?  And I mean, really investing in?  Not all of us have the opportunity to have a fraternity experience like mine, but we can all take the time to truly invest ourselves in relationships, especially in this season of life.

Last Saturday reminded me how grateful that I am to have been a part of something like Alpha Gamma Omega, and it made me even more grateful that between now and October 3 there will be three more “AGO weddings” that I will have the privilege of attending.  

The song we used to sing at the end of every meeting was called “Strong the Ties”, and I believe it is now as an alumnus that I am most able to see how true the words of that song are.

Strong the ties that bind together

Men with hearts so true

Staunch the love of Christian brothers

Loyal, through and through

On Anxiety

This has been a very anxiety-provoking season for my wife and me. We are moving to Los Angeles soon, we are supposed to move out of our apartment on Sunday, we will soon be hearing back about a job I applied for and really really want, I am still interviewing for other jobs, and we cannot yet settle on where in Los Angeles we are going to live (I should mention that Christie will be going home to visit her family for a week and I will be staying in Oceanside with friends during that time, so we have a bit more time before we have to move in somewhere).  We are confident that the dust will settle in a couple of weeks and we will be able to get Christie settled in Los Angeles before she starts school while I finish up my time in Oceanside and eventually join her in Los Angeles.  That being said, this has still been a very anxious season for us.

Just a few moments ago I read a short little blog post by Steven Furtick, who pastors at Elevation Church in North Carolina, about anxiety. It is simple, yet profound, and I will re-post it in its entirety here:

Anxiety is sin.  My anxiety infers that:

-God is incompetent.
If I’m anxious, it suggests that there’s an issue in my life that God is potentially incapable of resolving.  If His arm is not short and His ear is not deaf , why am I kicking and screaming trying to save myself?

-God is forgetful.
Do I suspect that my need has slipped God’s mind?  Does the Lord need me to send Him a reminder in the form of my panic and stress…just to make sure He doesn’t miss the appointment?

-God is indifferent.
1 Peter 5:7 teaches that I can cast all my anxiety on Him-because-and onlybecause-He cares for me.
By refusing to cast my cares on Him, I expose my deep down belief that He really doesn’t care-about me…about my particular burden.  Anxiety puts the pressure on me to perform as my own personal Savior, thereby undermining the intentions of God on my behalf.

Anybody other than me need to repent?

Be anxious for nothing.
Anxiety is unbiblical.  It’s counterproductive.  And it’s a direct insult to the proven character of a powerful, faithful, loving God.

There is nothing in that post that I did not alreay know cognitively.  I say that only to highlight my own sinful forgetfulness. My own anxiety during these past couple of weeks have proven how forgetful I can be when it the rubber meets the road on issues like anxiety, suffering, trials, etc.  I am in the process of repenting of my anxiety, and I am reminding myself that God is neither imcompetent, forgetful, nor indifferent, but rather is the giver of peace that surpasses understanding.  

That doesn’t make the uncertainty go away, and it doesn’t make my prayers for the uncertainty to resolve itself in a way that seems best to me any less fervent, but it does loose the chains of the crippling, sinful anxiety that has been so weighty these last couple of weeks.  I hope that Pastor Steven’s words can be as helpful to you as they have been to me. They have certainly served as a much needed reminder.

Our Need for the Gospel and Problems with Pragmatism

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an Acts 29 church planting conference (they call these conferences “boot camps”, but I live in a military community, and as such can’t bring myself to call sitting in a church listening to lectures for two days “boot camp”). Church planting certainly is not in my immediate future, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some good training that will hopefully make me more effective for the Kingdom wherever God leads Christie and me next.

During the conference Matt Chandler told a story that I can’t shake. I’ve been thinking about ever since and I will recap it here (some of the details may be a bit fuzzy, but you’ll get the gist of it).

To give you some context, he was talking about the pressure that exists today for preachers to give messages that are “practical”. There is indeed quite a lot of pressure to emphasize practicality in sermons, and the unfortunate reality is that often our emphasis on practicality can cause us to deemphasize the gospel (my words, not his, but I doubt he would disagree). He told a story about a time fairly recently when a three year old child of a family in his church suddenly had an awful seizure. His parents took him to the hospital in a panic, and immediately he was examined by doctors, who were not able to give good news.  The child had an enormous tumor that was going to require surgery immediately.  Even with surgery the doctors were not sure that they were going to be able to save the boy’s life.  One thing they did tell his parents was that they would likely have to remove part of his brain, and as a result there was a possibility that when the child woke up from the surgery his personality, memory, cognition, etc. would be effected.  I am not a parent, and I cannot pretend to understand how devastating that would be to hear as a parent.

This family was close to the Chandlers, so as soon as Matt heard about it he went to the emergency room to see the family. As soon as Matt entered the emergency room, the boy’s mother hugged him.  As she hugged him she whispered these words: “Thank you, thank you, thank you, for teaching me about God, because I don’t know how I would do this if I didn’t know about God.”  As Chandler was speaking in front of us last week in San Diego he added, “pragmatism burns away when life gets crazy, the transcendent, holy, God holds you up.”

Wow.

The fact is, in the intense storms of life we don’t need seven reasons why debt is dumb or five steps to raising good kids.  We need God.  We need an accurate view of the God of the Bible. That is what transforms us, and that is what holds us up.

I will be the first to admit that being pragmatic doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t preach the gospel and vice versa. The two are not mutually exclusive. I’ll even say that pragmatism, in and of itself is fine. But not when it turns Christian worship into idol worship.  Not when it turns Jesus into the means rather than the end. Not when it causes us church folk to sell out in order to draw a bigger crowd (The Acts29 folks had some stuff to say about that). The idolatry inherent in that sort of approach is another topic for another post.

I was talking with a friend recently and he was expressing some frustration with the content of the preaching that he had seen at some church services he had been at recently.  In his view they were heavy on pragmatism.  Then he said, “I just don’t think we need all of that, we need to know and live the gospel.  It seems to me that if we knew and lived the gospel then this other stuff would fall into place.” 

I couldn’t disagree. We don’t need pragmatism, we don’t need life enhancement, we don’t need religion, we don’t need morality, we don’t even need goofy evangelicalism.  We need the gospel. We need the cross of Christ.

As I continue to learn and progress in my young ministerial career, it is my prayer that no church service I am a part of would never emphasize pragmatism over the gospel. As I pray that,  I am realizing more and more how much repenting I have to do. I am realizing many of my past failures in ministry to this point can be traced directly to a failure to properly emphasize and proclaim the gospel. And I’m thankful for guys like Matt Chandler that are helping me to re-learn the necessity of gospel-centered preaching.

Grateful

Most of you know that Christie and I are in a major period of transition.  My job at New Song Community Church is ending at the end of June. At the end of May Christie and I will be moving out of our apartment, and I will spend June living in a friend’s guest room while Christie spends a week with her parents in Sacramento before moving into our yet-to-be-located apartment in Los Angeles and preparing to start graduate school at USC. At then end of June I will step down as the leader of Seven24, a ministry that I have had the privilege of leading since its birth more than two years ago, and I will move up to Los Angeles with Christie. We are sad to be leaving, but we are excited about the next step in our journey.  At this point, we aren’t sure where we are going to live because that is somewhat dependent on where I am able to get a job.

This is a time of massive uncertainty, to be sure.  We know generally where we will be in a couple of months, but major details are still up in the air.  I will be the first to say this is not the greatest of crises that exists in the world, but the difficulty of trying to find a job in ministry in this economy in the Pasadena-ish area and otherwise shore up the details of our impending move has been challenging for us.

However, in the midst of this period of transition, I have been utterly blown away by the love and support that we have received from our church community. We have been abudantly blessed.  A couple of months ago when our impending departure became public knowledge, members of our congregation were exceedingly kind and gracious in expressing their sorrow that I was leaving (budget constraints are making it impossible for me to stay). They made Christie and I feel appreciated and valued. This has continued for a couple of months now, as I frequently have people stop me in the church lobby and say they are sad to see us go.

The love and support of our church family has been especially evident as I have been interviewing for a job in Los Angeles that I really want. It is a college ministry director job at what looks like a great church in west Los Angeles (one of a few that I am interviewing at), and it is located right next to a major university. This job appears to be a great fit for me/us. 

The first gesture of support that came from my congregation was from one of my fellow staff members, who a few weeks ago stopped me as I walked by his cubicle and insisted that I e-mail him the names and phone numbers of all of the churches that I applied to so that he could call them and tell them they should hire me.  He did that without any sort of request on my part.

Then, a few days later, I got a call from the aforementioned church, inviting me up to the church office the following Thursday for an interview. I was ecstatic. 

A couple of days before the interview, I sent out a prayer request to our church’s prayer chain asking that people would pray for the interview.  As badly as I want this job, my prayer throughout this journey (and the prayer that I asked our prayer team to pray), has been for Spirit-led discernment for myself and for those interviewing me that would lead to Christie and I eventually landing at the right church.  Not long after the prayer request e-mail went out, I got a two e-mails from different members of our staff telling me they were praying for me.  People wished me well and offered their prayers in person for the next couple of days.  

On the day of the interview, as I was nervously trying to study for that weekend’s sermon in a Starbuck’s not far from the site of my interview, I received a text message from a friend saying he had been praying for me and assuring me that I would do great. After the interview, on my drive back to Oceanside, my boss (who I count as a close friend) called to find out how the interview went.  When I arrived home, my small group was just finishing its meeting, and they all wanted to hear about it.  The following Sunday at church I had a number of people approach me to ask how the interview went.  They all assured me that they would remain in prayer for me when I told them that I thought the interview went well, but that I would not find out if they wanted me back for a second visit for a couple of weeks.  

Since then I have had people ask me almost every day if I have heard anything from the church.  Some of these people are folks I know well- staff members, parents of students in the college ministry I pastor, friends and acquaintances.  Others are folks who I don’t know terribly well, but who I enjoy exchanging a warm greeting with when we see each other on Sunday mornings- ushers, board members, other volunteers. Just this last Saturday evening during the meet-and-greet portion of our Saturday night service a dear older woman in our congregation named Shryle asked which Thursday it had been that I had had my interview, and said that she had prayed on the last couple of Thursdays just to make sure that she did not miss praying on the day of the interview. This morning I had several more people ask if I had any sort of update for them. The interest and concern that the prayer warriors of New Song Community Church have taken in this challenge and Christie and I are facing has been truly humbling.

While I don’t know how this will all turn out, the repeated prayers of the faithful men and women of New Song Community Church have given me great confidence.  They have given me confidence (and have served as a reminder to me) that the will of God will be done in this situation, and I can rest in that. They have given me confidence to know that my church family believes in me, and that they believe that God has in fact placed his calling upon my life.  They have given me confidence to know that through the many highs and lows that Christie and I have experienced in ministry over the last three years, we have in fact been able to see God use us in a way that really did make a difference on the people around us. They have shown me their love in a real and tangible way. They have shown me yet again just how valuable community is.

I know that many of the people that have prayed for me, that have lovingly inquired about the lastest news in my job hunt, and have otherwise supported Christie and I in this journey will never know that this blog post was written.  I hope that my thanks and gratitude have shown them how much Christie and I appreciate them. For those of you that have prayed and are reading, thank you.  Really, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.  We are so grateful for your prayers, and we are humbled by your faithful intercession on our behalf.  

I would ask that you would continue to pray for us, asking that God would open doors for us to the church in the Los Angeles area where we can serve in ministry in a way that will be of maximum gospel effectiveness.  I’ve got another interview  with a different church tomorrow (Monday), and of course I am still waiting to hear from the church I interviewed at already.  

Christie and I have been truly blessed with a wonderful church family, and the memory of the love and support that has been shown to us by so many will not soon fade.

Jackie

I’m going to start blogging about things that matter (on a regular basis) again soon.  No really, I promise, I am. But for now I’ve got a funny story from today at Fuller. 

Our class took a bit of a field trip to hear from a woman, Jean Burch” who is the senior pastor of a church that has done some truly remarkable things in the Pasadena community.  The church of about 100 has helped turn the drug and crime center of Pasadena into a beautiful apartment complex.  It was truly inspiring to hear the story of the ways God has used this remarkable woman and this remarkable church.  Following her lecture, she took our class on a tour of the expansive apartment complex her church managed.  It was a low-income housing area, but it was nonetheless very well maintained and aesthetically pleasing.  The complex stretches across a few different streets, and there are a handful of homes located between different parts of the complex.  As we were standing near one of the streets, Ms. Burch starting describing what was nearby.

“If you look down there past the trees, that is where our church is located.  And that house across the street, it has been rebuilt since then, but Jackie Robinson used to live on that lot.  There’s even a plaque in the sidewalk saying that he used to live there.”

At that, about ten grown men in the class (myself included) were instantly transformed into the cast of the movie The Sandlot and were overcome with excitement at the fact that we were standing next to the childhood home of such a legendary sports figure. We scurried across the street and took out our Blackberries, iPhones, and cell phones to get a picture of the plaque. One by one we took our pictures, most certainly looking ridiculous to anyone passing by (why on earth are those guys taking pictures of the ground while chattering like nine-year-olds???) Here’s mine:

 

 

While I am not the world’s biggest baseball fan, I have been a Jackie Robinson fan since I was old enough to read his amazing story.  I can still picture the cover of the children’s book that I read I don’t know how many times.  I did my first school report on Jackie Robinson in third grade, and have been fascinated by his story throughout the rest of my life.

Fortunately, that was the end of the tour, because from that point on all we could do was talk about Jackie Robinson and how cool it was to see his childhood home. The Australian in our class was thoroughly unimpressed since he had never heard of Jackie Robinson, so we tried to fill him in.  Not exactly a typical day at Fuller Seminary.