Rethinking Church

Do we really need the church? Can't I be a Christian without being part of organized religion? Why should I have to listen to someone preach at me every Sunday? Isn't the church just a man made structure? These seem to be the types of questions that many spiritually minded people are asking these days and I have heard them from family, friends and even pastors. In fact, at our last annual association meeting one speaker challenged us with the need to rethink the entire way we do church.

This is also a popular theme in many Christian books that are being published these days. For example, recently Tim Challies reviewed a book entitled "So you Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore" by Dave Coleman and Wayne Jacobsen. Here is part of his conclusion:

Though Jacobsen does occasionally affirm that institutional churches may do some good, the theme of the book comes through loud and clear. In the appendix Jacobsen says, without any apparent trace of hyperbole, “I can tell you absolutely that my worst days outside organized religion are still better than my best days inside it.” And from cover-to-cover, the book is heartlessly negative towards the local church. Christians should, and perhaps even must, withdraw. But the case is made through emotion and through false comparison. Those who hold closely to Scripture may affirm some of what Jacobsen teaches in this book, but they must reject its overall message.

Is organized religion a thing of the past? Can I be a Christian without being part of a local church? If these are questions you are currently wrestling with, may I recommend the you take some time and listen to this message by Dr. Mark Dever entitled "The Importance of the Local Church". He does an excellent job explaining things from a biblical perspective.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. - Acts 2:41-42 (ESV)

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Politics and Religion

This past Saturday, pastor/author Rick Warren hosted and open forum debate at his church with the two presidential candidates. I wasn't able to watch it live, as I do not have CNN, but I have seen bits and pieces of the broadcast on youtube and it certainly looked like a very good program. In fact, on his blog Dr. Albert Mohler gives the following assessment.

With the press pushing the event as a "new face" for American evangelicals, I was not overly hopeful. Given the hype, I was positively unhopeful. But the event turned to be quite worthwhile after all. I still have deep reservations about identifying the event so closely with a church, but the conversations really did get to urgently important and controversial issues, and Pastor Rick Warren handled the conversations with aplomb, demonstrating both civility and candor.

Pastor Warren's questions ranged from the deeply personal to the overtly controversial. He often asked questions that made it difficult for the candidates to avoid giving direct and revealing answers. He let the candidates speak for themselves.

One of the questions asked had to do with their positions on abortion, what I believe to be the most important social issue Americans face. It is an issue not unlike the one William Wilberforce faced and conquered in British parliment 200 years ago. An issue that demands clear and courgaeous thinking. Here is how the two candidates responded...



Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic):

“By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School):

“It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania):

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris):

“To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”

Source: First Things

Psalm 139:13 (ESV)

You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

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Highly Recommended

This fall Crossway publications wil be releasing the much anticipated ESV study bible and I am very excited to read and recommend it. As such, I encourage you to take five minutes and watch the following video that talks about some of the features of this wonderful resource. As Jonathan Edwards once said...

You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with...divine truth...you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righ teousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
- 2 Tim. 3:16-17 (ESV)
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Grieving with Hope

It is never easy to lose someone you love. Death is a very painful reality that none of us can avoid dealing with in this life. It can cause a great deal of pain, anger and doubt to enter into our lives. Yet as those who have come to faith in Christ, we are given the ability to deal with it in a very unique way. Because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we are given a sure and certain hope that death is not the end.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. -1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

This does not mean however that we can not or should not grieve the loss of a loved one. As American author Bruce Barton once said, "Too many Christians feel that grief is wrong, that we're supposed to rejoice when a loved one goes to be with the Lord. While we can rejoice in their going home, we can also grieve our loss." Death is very painful and it rightly deserves our grief and anger, but as those who have been saved by grace, we have the ability of grieving with hope.

Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife recently lost their youngest daughter in a tragic family accident. In the following interview the couple shares their story and their pain in a very open and honest way. Yet they want to make it very clear that as incredibly painful as it has been, they still have the hope of one day being reunited with their daughter.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. - 1 Thes. 4:13 (ESV)

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