On August 4, 2010 in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Judge Vaughn Walker overturned California’s voter-approved Proposition 8,  which provided “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” sparking yet another round of controversy surrounding the definition of both marriage and equality. Paraphrasing Judge Walker’s ruling, he said that CA voters based their decision on the irrational belief in the inferiority of certain people, thus denying them certain rights.

The rhetoric is, of course, flying. One man on NPR lamented that it’s just “downright silly” that a professionally-trained judge can’t see what any little child can see; that “it takes a Mom and Dad” to be a family. On the other side, NPR featured a woman saying that the end of “Gay Apartheid” was finally in sight.

What are we to make of all of this, especially if we believe that the Bible identifies homosexuality as a sin and defines, as part of the creation mandate itself, marriage as the union of one man and one woman, which I do. Can we admit that, in a legal culture that defends the right to let your pants sag and underwear show as free speech, that, “rights” might need to be redefined?

I don’t get involved in a lot of politics and I don’t think that it’s the role of government to legislate morality. But I’ve been thinking all morning about Judge Walker’s assertion that CA voters hold irrational beliefs about gays and lesbians being inferior. I believe that homosexuality is a sin and that marriage is, by its very definition, the covenant union of a man and a woman but I do not believe that gays and lesbians are somehow inferior.

My point is not to isolate homosexuality as some “worse” sin while turning a blind eye to others. Nor is my point to particularly condemn those caught in the sin of homosexuality, for apart from God’s redeeming hand, none of us is righteous, none of us does good, none of us seeks God (Romans 3:9-18). We have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and we all need a Savior (1 Timothy 1:15). It makes me sad that we have communicated issues of sin in such a way that we are heard as saying that people struggling with a particular sin are somehow “inferior” while, since we do not struggle with that same sin, we are somehow “superior.” This is not a biblical sentiment in the slightest. But that is exactly how we are heard.

It certainly could be the case that identifying anyone as a sinner is perceived as judgmental and as a value statement on that person. After all, it is unavoidable to get into issues of “right” and “wrong” and who gets to say. But I wonder if the way we have chosen to communicate in many of these conversations has actually robbed our message of any meaning. We may say that homosexuality isn’t a greater sin than others but we don’t act that way. We may say that God calls us to love all people, but we rarely live that way.

The fact that we do not point the finger of sin against our own prejudices and judgments certainly makes it possible to hear us as saying that others are somehow inferior. But this misses the message of Grace. We are all sinners. None is superior to another and proclaiming sin is not a value judgment. But that’s exactly what we’ve done. History’s pages are certainly filled with people who have spoken the truth in anything but love. Homosexuality is a sin and we must proclaim such but we must not overlook our own sins in the process.

Yesterday I posted Catalyst’s interview with Francis Chan in which he announced his resignation from Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA. I’m certainly no prophet, but I can’t say I was terribly surprised. Back in 2009, Christianity Today published an interview with Chan which gave some insightful details:

Chan finds himself at a new juncture. He is stepping aside as day-to-day leader of Cornerstone for several months to begin a new ministry. He will train pastors in nearby Los Angeles County who will in turn gather groups to meet in house churches.

“The main reason to step over to L.A. County is the sheer number of people who live there,” says Chan. “Simi Valley is a city of 100,000 people, but about 15 minutes away are millions of people. We are trying something different—a lot of people in Simi Valley are not ready for the changes we have planned.”

The piece goes on to say:

Chan’s long-term plan involves building the church without having a building. Associate pastor Matt Moore says the experiment is a way to find out how the church can grow without the limits of a building. Each satellite church will have an elder overseeing the local body, and that congregation can choose whether or not to go to the main campus in Simi Valley.

In the Catalyst interview, Chan speaks of “doing church in a different way” and then clarifies that this would be: “not necessarily the formal Sunday services.” This makes perfect sense when looking back on the 2009 interview when Soma Communities and Crowded House are mentioned as being influential in Chan’s ministry-mind-shift.

I won’t go too much into my own personal ministry-mind-shift other than to say that Tim Chester, Steve Timmis, Jeff Vanderstelt, and Caesar Kalinowski have been quite instrumental. What I do want to comment on, though is that Chan doesn’t seem to be alone in his desire to move beyond institutionalized American Christianity. He seems to simply be speaking for others many others who long to move beyond just the Sunday-morning, transfer of information approach to Christianity.

I think that’s part of the reason Chan’s book Crazy Love has struck such a chord with so many. Chan has vocalized a call for authentic, Christ-centered community living on mission together. Many people are no longer content simply growing big churches that don’t really matter. Butts in the seats do not necessarily equate with disciples in life. Many seem to be realizing this, convicted of it and Chan just seems to be a mouthpiece here.

I pray that the resignation of a “high profile pastor” from a “high profile church” may cause many to question what it is that could cause Chan to make such a “drastic” move and what some of us need to drastically change in our lives to better follow Jesus. The sad truth, is that, for some of us, “church” is probably getting in the way of following Jesus. Hopefully, Chan’s public move will wake some of us from our slumber. If anything, he is living what he preaches:

Sunday at Church of the Cross, where I pastor, I preached a message from Acts 18:1-19:10. Between Apollos and the “Disciples of John,” there is an odd theme of people who have an external form of religion without the internal reality of Jesus. This seems to be the case of the “disciples” much more than of Apollos. Apollos just needed some gentle, behind-the-scenes correction on his doctrine while the “disciples” required full-on, public rebuke. Apollos seems to have been a Believer just in need of some doctrinal clarification while the “disciples” don’t appear to actually have been Believers at all prior to their encounter with Paul.

It seems entirely possible and even somewhat likely that we will be surrounded by forms of religion that don’t actually know Jesus. As I was getting ready for the day, thinking about things like “right doctrine” not even being enough and that talking about Jesus does not actually mean that we are known by Him, my wife was flipping through the channels and stopped on everybody’s favorite feel-good life coach (he’s not a pastor in any biblical sense of the word), Joel Osteen. I’m not sure what text he was supposed to b expounding on, but really, does it matter? The “message” is the same every time: God wants you to have a great life, now. Your Best Life Now, if you will. He was talking about how God can speed up the natural processes of our lives toward success, just like how Jesus turned water into wine, accelerating the natural process. Now, Joel may have had some chemistry classes that I missed, but as many glasses of water as I’ve left out, it doesn’t seem to be the natural process to me that water turns into wine. But I digress. Osteen’s basic message is nothing more than the suburban version of the prosperity-gospel. As we watched, my wife an I wondered how many people hear his messages, look at their lives and then wonder if God hasn’t actually failed them?

Then, yesterdaymorning, I came across this “tweet” from The Gospel Coalition, a short quote from Tim Keller:

Keller deftly expounds the same theme I’ve been mulling over for the past few days, shedding a different light onto the same topic. We live in a culture where Osteen’s message seems to fit and the reality of suffering escapes us. Comfort breeds complacency but I can’t help but wonder, despite all of our talk about Jesus, how well do we really know Him? Indeed, how well can we know him without suffering? Paul says in Philippians 3:8-11 that he wants to share in suffering so that he might know Jesus better. In 2 Corinthians 1:5, Paul says again that he shares in Christ’s sufferings. I’m not saying that we can’t be saved without suffering, that we are somehow like the “Disciples of John” because we live in the lap of comfort, but are we maybe quite like Apollos, teaching the things of Jesus accurately, but not quite fully?

I worry that the American church (and I realize here that I’m putting myself out there for the charge of: “Oh, that Brent, he thinks he’s got it all together and he just attacks everyone else, but I’m honestly including myself in my worries) talks a lot about Jesus without ever really knowing him. I look at Apollos and I’m convicted that even mostly right doctrine is not enough. I don’t want to be like those people in Acts who had an external form of religion with no internal reality of Jesus.

For some time now I’ve been hearing lots of pastor friends talk about the benefits of Mind Mapping for sermon preparation and other uses. I was not familiar with the concept, so after some research, it looked quite interesting. I have never been a fan of the idea that sermons must be outlined in a three (or more if you’re really Reformed)-point model. I don’t think in a linear model and I’ve always struggled with finding the right flow to idea development and presentation flow.

That’s exactly where mind mapping comes in. It allows you to visually organize concepts around a central concept. While similar to an outline in theory, it is actually much more intuitive because it allows ideas to freely flow without being forced into an already-existing pattern (though in a sense, this is still what you’re doing). You can visually see how concepts relate and connect.

For me, this works best after I’ve done my exegetical work in my Moleskine (yes, I know, let the “hipster” ridicule begin, but seriously, it is the best notebook I’ve used!). So, I spend the beginning part of the week working through the text with pen and paper, opening a Mind Map, looking for that central, uniting theme of the sermon. Then, later in the week, once that theme has emerged, I work through a mindmap of the sermon, sometimes after working through a mindmap of the text itself (this is done in conjunction with Bible Arcing, but I personally find mind mapping the text itself quite helpful). The combination of pen and paper exegetical work with mind mapping then allows me to preach without notes. I do take a copy of my mind map into the pulpit with me but I rarely look at it. After downloading the free trial of Mindjet, I was hooked.

I’ve been asked by several people to see what a sermon might look like in a mind map, so I’m including a coupe here to look at. This first one is an incomplete map of the sermon I’m currently working through from Acts 15. We are considering Acts 15 in conjunction with Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. In Acts 15, the Apostles specifically to avoid meat sacrificed to idols while in Romans and Corinthians, Paul makes allowance for it (for a bigger version click on the image):

Here is a mindmap from a sermon on Acts 13:48: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (again, for a larger version simply click on the image):

I’m certainly no expert on this and there are readers here more experienced in this than I am but I wanted to pass this along. Hopefully it will be a benefit for you.

Apparently I’m one of those bloggers who thrives on controversy. Well, not really. But I do tend to think out loud and I have been thinking a lot about the idea of “fencing the table” when it comes to communion. For those not familiar with the concept, this is the (primarily believer-Baptist) idea that communion is for believers only. If you are in any unrepentant sin, then please refrain from partaking. If you are not a Believer, please refrain from partaking.

Though this is still my default position, I’ve been doing a lot of consideration lately. When Jesus instituted what we now know as the Lord’s Supper, or communion, on His last Passover, just prior to His crucifixion, He gave the elements to His disciples, including both Peter and Judas. Did Jesus know Peter would deny Him? Absolutely. Did Jesus know Judas would betray Him? Absolutely. And yet He gave them both the bread and the cup.

If Jesus gave the bread and the cup to known sinners, where in Scripture do we derive the idea that it is ONLY for unrepentant sinners? Truly, who among is a fully unrepentant sinner this side of glory? The argument seems to hinge (at least from the Credobaptistic [Believer-baptist as opposed to infant-baptist] position) on the idea that Communion is for Believers only because that is who Jesus effectually died for, therefore, that is who the elements are for.

Though I am still Credobaptist, I am having a hard time getting around the fact that Jesus gave the elements to men He knew would betray Him within a matter of hours. He did not exclude them. He did not say that because of their impending actions they should refrain, He gave and let their participation wreak havoc on their own consciences.

I’m simply wondering if we have gone farther than Jesus in protecting His honor?

What do you think?

I recently read this article by a minister named William Einwechter on the website of the Vision Forum. Einwechter argues that a woman should not hold the office of public magistrate (by which I think he means just any public office that would put her over men) because it is not the sphere in which she has been placed. Her sphere is the home, and God wants us to preserve his created order.

To summarize Einwechter’s argument (within the wider context of Vision Forum): God has created in such a way that government has a specific role and purpose, as do men, women, and children. Women have dominion in the home (see sections 13-14 of the Vision Forum’s Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy). A woman in public office would violate God’s created order. Men are the head of women (1 Cor. 11:3), the Bible laments women leaders (Isaiah 3:12), the virtuous women of Proverbs 31 is busy at home, and Deborah should not be used to build a case for women in public office.

I will look at each of these arguments to show that his argument doesn’t support his conclusion. First, I can agree with Einwechter that there are some very positive statements about a woman being in the home. My wife is a stay-at-home mom with our 3 children whom we plan to home-school. To be sure, raising children is a noble endeavor, the home is a priority for us, and I think the Bible supports this picture. However, just because a godly woman is active at home doesn’t mean that is her only sphere or can be her only sphere. All that those verses show is that the home is a noble place for a woman to serve, but not the only noble place for a woman to serve.

How can a woman be under male headship and still hold public office? I fail to see why this is an issue. Suppose a woman has raised her children, even homeschooled them! Suppose she is a wise and godly woman, and has an interest in local politics. She wants to see more parks built and is concerned about zoning and roads. Having raised 10 children, she knows many families in the community and can build consensus. Her husband, who is busy working a full-time job, encourages her to run for office and be a blessing to the community.

In this case, how would male-headship being violated? No children are ignored. No husband is abandoned. It is a simple issue of a person having the time and wisdom to serve the community, which is a service to her husband! Einwechter says no, but in fact, the 13th Tenet of Biblical Patriarchy states “although her domestic calling, as a representative of and helper to her husband, may well involve activity in the marketplace and larger community.”

Einwechter points out that in Proverbs 31 it is the man who is at the gate, a place of civic leadership. Therefore, it should be the men who are civic leadership. But what does that prove? At best, it would support the argument that men were the civic leaders in that culture. However, that does not amount to an argument that women cannot hold office!

What about Isaiah’s lament that the women rule? Einwechter writes “Now if it is a sign of weakness for men who are civil rulers to be ruled by women, what is it but a sign of feebleness on the part of men to actually seek to have women rule over them?” But arguing that something was the case does not amount to an argument that something should be the case. This isn’t cultural relativism, it is simple logic. I could argue that for much of human history, women were not allowed to vote or own land. Does this mean it should be the case today?

What about Isaiah’s lament? What exactly is he lamenting? Einwechter dismisses the issue by saying “Whatever the exact connotations of this text are, one thing is clear: women ruling over men in the civil sphere is put in a very unfavorable light.” In fact, he is begging the question. Is it put in an unfavorable light? Wouldn’t that depend on the “exact connotations?” The exact connotations will determine our reading of the text!

I think the point of Isaiah 3 is clearly the terror brought by sin; the ravaging effects of disobedience. Rather than being the mighty people of God, Jerusalem and Judah are ruled by those who they should rule over. It isn’t about gender, but about dominion. Were little children literally ruling? Or was it women? I think the point is that, as with Samson, sin brings down the mighty.

But I am troubled with the tenor of this article. So much of the Complementarian/Egalitarian debate is short of charity. While I disagree with Egalitarians (specifically on the issue of male leadership in the home and women elders) I do not dismiss them as Einwechter does those who disagree with him, saying “For those who believe in the full inspiration and authority of the Bible, how can there be any other verdict than this?” Surely the author is a loving husband, fine father, and faithful minister. But this is little more than an ad hominem attack on those who disagree with his stance on women being elected to office. He is clearly an intelligent man, but his argument does not warrant the conclusion.

In conclusion, I respect Vision Forum. I enjoy reading their material, and as I do, I hope to post some reviews. However, I fear that in response to egalitarianism in the church and feminism at large they are over-correcting with a legalistic and rigid patriarchy which is wholly unsupported by Scripture. Does the Bible speak to gender issues? Of course! It gives us a patriarchy with clearly defined positions. Men are spiritual leaders in the home, the head of the wife, protectors and providers. Children are a blessing, that wives are to submit, and that the home should be a woman’s priority but not her only sphere, as is reflected in Proverbs 31 and in the Vision Forum Tenets. However, none of this warrants the conclusion that women cannot hold public office. Scripture simply suggests that such a decision by a woman seeking office should be made in light of other verses so that one’s family is not neglected, that one’s husband is supportive, and that one’s character is virtuous.

These considerations would also apply to a man running for office, however, would they not?

I am at Soma School in Tacoma, WA right now. Last night we began “storying” the Bible (telling the story of the Bible as just that: a story). This is a process many missionaries use to tell the story of who God is and what He has done in oral cultures (for example, see the IMB’s website on storying here).

As we covered the first five stories in this set (Creation, Garden, Fall, Cain & Abel, Noah), I have been struck once again by the power of story. Not that doctrine is unimportant, but remembering that redemption is a story and telling it as such enables us to focus on the big-picture issues. It also involves us, you become part of a story as you hear it; you become involved and invested. It’s easy to see themes and patterns emerge.

I’m wondering if any of you have used this technique in your local ministry context and what has the response been? If you’re the primary teacher in a church setting, how do you try to balance story with more doctrinal elements, or is this something you even consider? How might we recapture some of the magic of story in our churches? How might this technique be used for outreach locally? Why have we tried to make everything so analytical? How can we reincorporate doctrine into story? After all, isn’t that the way God revealed it to us in the first place?