Please read this book.

If for no other reason, then it appears to be truly upsetting a lot of pastors across the U.S.

Update:

Great article in yesterday's New York Times about The Shack and it's author. My favorite part:

Sales have been fueled partly by a whiff of controversy. Some conservative Christian leaders and bloggers have attacked “The Shack” as heresy. The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, devoted most of a radio show to the book, calling it “deeply troubling” and asserting that it undermined orthodox Christianity. Others have said the book’s approach to theology is too breezy to be taken seriously.

Here's a good general rule of thumb: If someone in authority tells you NOT to read a book, go ahead, pick it up and read it for yourself.  You'll be a better person for it.

This isn't too surprising, but Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is aggressively courting the Christian Vote.

This month, the Illinois senator held a closed-door meeting in Chicago with almost 40 Christian leaders, including evangelical heavyweights such as the Rev. Franklin Graham, publishing magnate Steve Strang and megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes.

And specifically, Obama is targeting young Christians though an effort his campaign calls the Josha Generation Project.

Obama's campaign is also launching a grass-roots effort, tentatively called Joshua Generation, with plans to hold concerts and house meetings targeted at young evangelicals and Catholics.

Color me unimpressed. The name "Joshua Generation" feels completely patronizing and cliche.

And look, I'm voting for Obama because I think he will be a competent leader.  I think he will get our troops out of Iraq. And I think he will eliminate the government corruption that has marked that last eight years of President Bush.  But I'm not voting for him because he is a Christian. I'm not looking for another Christian President. We already had one of those, and the guy was an unmitigated disaster.

I just want someone who can make this country work again. If Obama wants to talk about his Faith. Great. But this Joshua Generation feels like Obama hired some former Evangelical Youth Pastors and asked them how to reach young Christians.  Meh.  I expect better.

I'm too busy to write much, but there is a great article in the always entertaining Willamette Week about a teen conference put on by homeschoolers Alex and Brett Harris.  For those who spent any time in church, Alex and Brett are the younger brothers of Josh Harris who wrote, "I kissed dating goodbye".

You can say what you want about the content of what the Harris's preach, but uh, those are some ambitious genes in that family.

(Thanks to the readers who linked to this.)

A reader writes:

Have you guys heard/written anything about Living Hope Fellowship in Aloha, Oregon? The place is ripe with unreal, unbelievable religious abuse and inconsistencies. The pastor is a graduate of PBC and a proud member of MFI. Interestingly enough, he left MFI years ago and referred to the organization as "The Firm".
 
Now he subscribes to the same thinking and the bizarre happenings at that church could fill a book. The pastors have allowed their kids to take over and run the church, their theology is bizzare, they have covered up major sexual indiscretions, but defamed others for not paying their tithes consistently and the list goes on.
 
Just curious as I've not seen anything written on them and I cannot imagine there aren't scores of bitter ex-LHF'ers. Right now, people are leaving in spades.
 
Take care. You guys are awesome.

I'm posting this email for two reasons.

One, the writer called us awesome.

Two, the sentence "people are leaving in spades".

Sometimes I feel that readers of this blog consider themselves victims. And while I admit some people truly are vicitms of their church, the vast majority are only vicitms, because they never had the courage to leave the congregation. No one forces you to attend church.  You are always free to leave.

Now, I grew up in the church. So I understand the emotional ties one creates with the pastor and congregation. But when that emotion changes from a feeling of belonging to one of anger and bitterness, then you just need to leave. And you need to stop blaming others for your failure to act.

*Editors note: I do not verify the accuracy of the statements made in the letter above.

In the thread Do long sermons make men hate church, the following exchange has taken place:

Sam: If every believer present in the assembly of the saints can NOT stand and speak under the Spirit’s leading (1 Corinthians 14:26), then there’s a ‘house rule / tradition’ in the way.

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. (1 Corinthians 14:26 NIV)

Help Me Understand: What house rules are you talking about? … Will we let everyone that wants to stand up and testify go ahead and do that? Is that what you suggest? Maybe they use 1 Cor 14:40 as a guide, ever thought of that?

But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. (1 Corinthians 14:40 NIV)

The exchange points up something that has long bothered me about how scripture is interpreted, where occasionally believers will use one verse of scripture to nullify another. First Corinthians 14:26 is clear about how the assembly of the saints is supposed to work together - each one coming to the assembly with something to offer for the edification of all … a word of prophecy, a tongue, an interpretation, a hymn - all orchestrated beautifully by the Holy Spirit who is the source of the life and inspiration and spiritual gifts entrusted to the saints.

More often than not however, the freedom accorded the saints by the Holy Spirit and scripture, to share openly (courteously and lovingly) in the assembly has been sacrificed on the altar of liturgical "orderliness", wherein only the pastor and his (or her) handpicked supporters with rehearsed and pre-approved messages are allowed to speak, while the congregation watches in silence, according to the house rules (or traditions established by the local church). If the ALL the saints aren't allowed to share in the assembly, without audition, pre-approval, etc., then clearly there are "house rules" (traditions) that have been put in place to nullify what scripture plainly teaches.

About such traditions, Jesus said to the Pharisees and teachers of the law:

Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that. (Mark 7:13 NIV)

I'm not sure which bothers me more, the practice of using one scripture (1 Corinthians 14:40) to nullify or severely limit another (1 Corinthians 14:26), or the deceitfulness of man in suggesting that the perfect logos word of God contains within itself contradictory scriptures, which when paired, cancel one another out, leaving man to do whatever he wants to do.

The clever lie in using one scripture to nullify another, is that it is NOT really scripture canceling scripture, but man's INTERPRETATION of one scripture (1 Corinthians 14:40) is used to cancel what is clearly the Father's will for the assembly (1 Corinthians 14:26) of the saints. In so doing, men blame God for their tradition of silencing the saints.

In the example above, it is clear that 1 Corinthians 14:40 serves as an expectation for how 1 Corinthians 14:26 should be carried out. Unfortunately, the practice of most institutional churches I'm familiar with, use the former to nullify the latter. 

Surely the saints are meant to come to a considered and mature interpretation of scripture concerning how they all work together to form the perfect word of instruction, rather than seek ways to cancel those passages of scripture that are contrary to the traditions of men.

Sam

Here's a fun article from a columnist in Michigan, mocking televanglists and their "prosperity gospel".

It's not a gospel you'll find after Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. It isn't tucked in near Revelation. You won't find it anywhere in the Bible. The basic idea is that God will grant financial and spiritual wealth to the faithful. What a deal. Just really, really, really believe and take the rewards to the bank.

After all, doesn't God help those who help themselves? No, wait. That's not in the Bible. Benjamin Franklin said that, and while he accomplished a lot, I don't think Franklin contributed anything to the Scriptures.

So far, the prosperity gospel seems to work well for the televangelists who are cashing in on all the stuff they sell and the Social Security checks little old ladies are donating to their churches. I'm not sure how prosperous the donors are getting.

Good point. You'd think after over 10 years of practicing the prosperity gospel, the members of City Bible church would all be filthy rich and overwhelmingly happy. But uh, you know, I think they're all pretty much living the same lives they were living a decade ago. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're not getting rich, then you've just spent the last 10 years of your life, listening to one boring repetitive sermon after another.

I keep remembering what Jesus told that rich guy: "Sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor. Then follow me." The rich guy declined.

The prosperity preachers apparently don't include that story in their sermons.

They don't. They also don't include the verse about camels going through needles. But then, the prosperity gospel isn't about the Bible. It's about the pastors preaching it.

Whatev. I really just enjoy the fact that the mainstream media is picking up on the "prosperity doctrine" and pretty much coming to the same conclusion that we all did four years ago. The prosperity doctrine is a sham. And a mockery. It's a smamockery!

Multnomah School of the Bible's student newspaper The Voice interviews author David Murrow, asking why men don't attend church.

the Voice: How can preaching be improved to attract men to church?

Murrow: Make it shorter. One of the main complaints that men have with church is that the sermons are long and boring. The average parable of Jesus takes 38 seconds to preach. Why does it take a preacher 30 minutes or an hour?

And then the other thing you can do is use a strong visual or object-lesson component every time you enter the pulpit. When Jesus taught, he often used a prop, like a coin or a sheep or some wheat. We need to recover visual preaching because that's what Jesus did.

Is there anything in the structure and organization of the service that could be improved to appeal to men?

Men like a service that is vertical-focused, focused more on God. A lot of churches have a horizontal focus, where the focus is on the people; people stand up and share prayer requests, for example. Men usually hate that.

If your worship service reflects "God is my buddy," then you're going to attract more women. If your God is a little more remote, absolute, powerful and mighty, then you are going to attract more men.

What style would appeal to men?

The focus on a mission. One hundred years ago, preachers talked about our mission. Today they talk about a personal relationship with Jesus. If that's the punch line of the gospel, then you're going to have more women than men responding because women are all about relationships.

How does church music affect men?

We used to have hymns, which were pretty well-suited to the masculine heart; they talked about battle and blood and victory. Today we have praise and worship choruses, which I call "Jesus is my boyfriend music." We use words that no man would dare say to another, and yet we ask men every week to express their love to God using these very romantic words.

How can churches change?

It's a long process. You have to disciple your men first. But once thy have roots, then you can start offering them ministries oriented toward their tastes.

What should churches do to make boys grow up to love going to church?

We really start losing boys in Sunday school. The behaviors we value in Sunday school are sit still, listen, memorize and verbalize. The verbal centers of a girl's brain mature about 18 months ahead of those of a boy's. So if we have a highly verbal, reading, memorize-type Sunday school, who is going to do better? The way you retain boys in Sunday school is you give them a chance to win, to perform as well as the girls.

I am a big believer in making church shorter. This is primarily because I am an impatient person, but also, because I rarely listened to a long sermon that I thought couldn't have been covered in 15 minutes.  I used to say a silent prayer of thanks every morning for Children's church, because the only reason Pastor Frank wouldn't go long some Sunday's was so that the four-year-olds in Childrens church wouldn't go crazy and take over the place.

(Thanks Suzanne)

I'd like to take a quick moment to say thank you to all the faithful contributors to this blog. Over the past few months our little blog has averaged over 500 unique visitors each day. I don't know why you are coming by and I don't care. You can love us, you can hate us, you can just be so damn bored at work that you need anything to give your self a break…it doesn't matter. To any and all who stop by…Thank you.

Here are a couple of comments that led me to a small rant: 

Help me understand says:

“If we simply preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that He died and was buried and was RAISED from the dead (which by way is what separates Christianity from all the world religions) and that we need to follow after Him. I bet people would get saved…maybe?” 

 Fred Flinstone replies:

<blockquote>All we have to do to see people get saved is talk about Christ and Him crucified. Now that’s just crazy talk. </blockquote>

I tend to agree…to a certain extent (I think HMU was making a slightly different point but never the less)…

People know Jesus. And people know that He died on the cross for our sins.  I am yet to run into one person who said "Now, who is this Jesus guy?". The problem is that the majority of people out there talking about Jesus are doing nothing to SHOW Jesus.

If you really want to see people saved, stop talking about what Jesus did and start SHOWING people what He did…which is sacrifice His life for you.

Please people, Can we all make a pact to STOP TALKING ABOUT WHO JESUS WAS AND WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED UNTIL WE CAN START SHOWING IT. Simply serve others, expecting nothing in return, and let Christ work in their hearts.

Serve others without preaching at them (they've heard it all before).

Serve others without inviting them to church (they've been there and found it to be a waste of time).

Serve others without saying "Well sir, Jesus is my Lord and Savior" 100 times (the more you say it, the less convincing it sounds).

Serve others even when they take advantage of you (don't stop at the poor and needy.)

Give Jesus something non-hypocritical to work with and see if He doesn't bring that elusive "revival" so many are seeking.

I'm done. 

Wendall Smith of The City Church in Seattle has written an interesting blog about healing…and of course by interesting I mean confusing. The blog was written back in February so it may not be current, but this is what he says:

This past week was a challenging week for me and many members of our church. While I have been preaching the message of healing from the pulpit over the past few weeks, the devil is still at work attempting to steal, kill and destroy.

One of the dear sisters of our church and a wonderful mother and wife suffered an undetected heart attack and went home to be with Jesus on the weekend. Another dynamic young Pastor's wife passed into eternity after battling cancer for several months. Many people prayed fervently, cried out to God and did everything they knew to secure healing for these women of God. But they died. They departed from us and went home to be with the Lord in Heaven.

TOOT TOOT, I have an announcement to make: When I die, whether it is tonight or in 100 years, it will be the work of the Lord. It will be because God has allowed it to happen. It will be God's decision that I die. I refuse to put my life in the hands of the devil and I can not understand why Pastor Wendell Smith would end a paragraph about healing with, "the devil is still at work attempting to steal, kill and destroy and follow that up with a paragraph talking about people in his church who have died. Why does Wendell think dying is the work of the devil?

Announcement over.

Wendell then goes on to list 7 "comforting secrets" that are "hidden in the pages of God's wonderful word". Here are a few of them:

#2 - The Scripture tells us that the "secret things belong to the Lord" and the things that are revealed belong to us (Deut 29:29). There are many things in this life, on this side of eternity that we do not understand, and therefore we must trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean to our own understanding. We may not know the "why" but we can know the "Who"!

We may not know the "why" but we can know the "Who"! WTF does that mean? And how does it relate? Geez Billy, sorry your mom died…and while I don't know "why" she died I can tell you "Who"!….see that doesn't even make any sense.

#4 - We have the sweet assurance that Heaven is an unfathomable reward for the believer. The death of the saints is precious in the eyes of the Lord (Psalm 116:15). Paul actually says it is far better to depart and be with Christ, and that to die is gain (Phil 1:20-23). He even says that he wanted Christ to be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death!

"The death of the saints is precious in the eyes of the Lord…"but wait…

#6 - With hearts full of faith and trust in the Lord our Healer we will continue to speak the word of faith and healing for people. We have been commissioned to preach the Word and heal the sick (Mark 16:15-20). These momentary contradictions will not hinder us from obeying the Lord and continuing His work. In fact we will retaliate (2 Cor 10:6) with greater fervor and zeal and continue to destroy Satan's evil works- by preaching and propagating Christ's healing message.

"We will retaliate with greater fervor and zeal and continue to destroy Satan's evil works…"

So…what I hear Wendell saying is that the Evil Works of Satan is precious in the eyes of the Lord…

It all sounds like double talk. I don't think Wendell knows what he is talking about. That is all.