Okay, Not My Last Blog

I am sorry. I have not blogged in three months! Someone said to me recently that they guessed the post from August WAS my last blog!



I will do better. I promise.



A lot has happened. Vacation, Jillian's wedding and health issues, starting up the new church year...all kind of got in the way. But I wll do better. Please do stay tuned on this blog. More is coming. I promise.

My Last Blog? (Hopefully not)

I know it's wierd, but every time before I go on vacation I think about what I need to say before I go in case God takes me and I never get back to Valdosta...and never get to preach or blog again. So, in case this is my last blog, here is something I want you to know. Actually, there are a lot of things I would like you to know...but since this has a link to the church website and since it is so much on my heart, here is something I need to say before I go.

Why We Must Contextualize
I am just going to touch on this; there is so much to say on this... we could be here all day. And I don't have all day; I know, neither do you.

"Define your terms."
-Voltaire

What is contextualization? Ed Stetzer put it creatively when he said that churches must not only exegete the Scripture, we must also exegete the culture. We need to study the culture we are in so that we can make the truth comprehensible to the people in that culture. Missionaries know this. They study the culture they are in. Then they dress like the culture, speak like the culture, and as much as is Biblically permissible, become like the culture, so they can communicate Christ to the people. Pardon the football analogy, but if I were trying to reach a bunch of Tennessee fans, I would not wear my Florida Gator gear. They probably would not listen to me. Now, I probably should put on a hat with a large T on it, but I might get sick...so I would just wear something neutral...to get a hearing. I would eat their food, learn their slang, etc, etc. This is what Missionaries do...and this is what we must do.

Why?

Number one: The Great Commission leaves us no other option - the church must be missional.

Number two: What we are doing right now is not working; ie, the US church is Not being Missionally effective right now. 80% of Churches are either stagnant or dying.

Number three: We need to face the fact that we no longer are a Chrisitan nation. Drastic changes have taken place in our culture in the past 50 years. It is not just that there has been a technological explosion, an information explosion, tremendous diversity, etc...but we are quickly becoming Postmodern, which means our society is increasingly processing life radically different than previous generations.

Number four: These changes mean that if we are going to be missionally effective -the church must adapt. For instance, if a Missionary moved from England to Brazil, he much keep the message but change the method. This is what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 9 when he said, "I have become all things to all men that by all means I might save some." This is why he even changed his given name from "Saul" to "Paul", a Greek name, so he could reach Greeks.

Number five: The same is true of us. Many are saying, and I agree strongly, that a key weakness in the church today is that we are not responding quickly enough or strongly enough to these cutural changes. This is why we are not missionally effective, to a large degree. We just are not willing to pay the price to fulfill the Great Commission. So, if we want to be missionally effective we need to be culturally relevant. It is just that simple.

Number six: A theological reason to contextualize - Jesus did. His name is Immanuel which means God with us. He became as we are. He took on flesh and rubbed shoulders with us. This is what you do when you want to reach people. However, when we refuse to contextualize, we give the message that God does not relate to you on your level. He is not there at the 7-11. He is not there when you argue with your wife, or surf the internet. He is not present where you live, work and play. God lives in a sterile, formal, ritualisitc church where they sing songs you can't relate to, use words you can't understand, and follow traditions that don't make sense. What a different picture we get of Jesus in the gospels! As Christ's representatives, we must contextualize.

Why is the church today dragging it's feet on this?

Change is hard. It is like learning a foreign language. None of us are going to do it for the fun of it. No, we only do it if absolutely necessary. Like Lorena. She was Hispanic and could not speak a work of English. Yet, she married an American man, Chris, who could not speak Spanish. I asked him about it and he said, "Communication is overrated." Well, I don't think Lorena agreed because she was working very hard to learn English ASAP! Obvously, she had something to say.
The point is, we tend to be like Chris. We are in no hurry to learn their languge because we don't think it is necessary. I am here to say, It is necessary.

Change also feels like liberalism. It feels like we are backing up, compromising, watering down the Bible. But nothing could be farther from the truth. We may be compromising tradition...but even there, what is the purpose of tradion? Tradition is simply something that worked so well for so long that we we kept doing it. What I am saying is that we need to be so in love with the truth and so desireous that many, many know this Jesus that we are willing to examine all we do. If the Bible commands it, we do it. Period. Whether people like it or not. But if the Bible does not command me to do something, and I keep doing - it even it makes me less effective at obeying Christ's Great Commission - I am guilty of Mark 7:8: "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of man."

I think we also feel like all this is new...and it is better safe than sorry. Better go with what is tried and true than what is risky and possibly wrong. Yesterday in my sermon, I mentioned the Parable Jesus told as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30. It is the parable of the talents. And do you remember the key truth? It is that Jesus told us to embrace risk. Yet I must confess that I tend to be like like the man why buried his one talent. I think: "Better safe than sorry." But clearly, this parable teaches just the opposite. It teaches, Better sorry than safe. Better to step out in faith, better to try, better to risk than bury your talent in the ground.

This is gutsy stuff. Contextualizing to the culture is not for the faint of heart. But then again, neither is following Jesus.

My Cat

We recently found out that our cat has cancer. We don't know how much longer she will live, but this news has made us sad and a little nostalgic.

About 16 years ago on a walk around our neighborhood, we heard the cries of a kitten. Since there were no houses nearby, we concluded this kitten must have been dropped off (basically, thrown away) there. Although we already had one cat, we decided to "adopt" this kitten. I remember that first day. Every time I tried to pick her up, she hissed at me. She was a little toughie. She did everything she could to escape, fight, hiss, growl - anything to show her displeasure. I thought, "Here we are trying to feed you; give you a warm and safe place to sleep - and all you can do is try to bite me?" She fought us every step of the way. Even so, we loved her and decided to call her Annie, after Little Orphan Annie. I would open the cage to feed her and she would arch her back and hiss. Finally came the day when we could trust her (and she could trust us!) enough to let her out of that cage. She tried to escape. She never would let us pet her...at least at first. Slowly...I mean, S-l-o-w-l-y she began to trust us.

Annie has never been into people that much, but somehow over a period of years, she has connected with me. Now, she greets me every morning. I pet her and she purrs then licks my hand. I say, "Sweet Kitty" and she says, "I love you." Well, not really (Annie has never learned to talk)...but I can tell she would say it if she could.

It is going to be tough losing her.

Annie also reminds me of...me. God came after me. I tried to escape - even bite...but God kept on loving me - despite my protests. He called me by name, He adopted me into His family...and as time went on I found myself loving Him more and more. I find myself saying, "I love you." What a change!

We are so much like Annie. One day we are hissing the next we are licking the Master's hand. We love Him. Why? "Because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

On Being Missional

Being Missional means that we take Christ seriously when He says to be fishers of men. (Matt. 4:19)
Being Missional means that we are actively seeking to fulfill Christ's Great Commission. (Matt. 28:19-20)
Being Missional means that we seek to think and act like missionaries.
Being Missional means that we follow Christ who said He came to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)
Being Missional means that we pray for the lost. (Rom. 10:1)
Being Missional means that our hearts are moved by the lost. (Matt. 9:36)
Being Missional means that we can say with George Whitefield, "Unless the Lord gives me souls, I believe I would die."
Being Missional means that we set priorities and evaluate everything we do in light of Christ's Mission. (Luke 15:1-7)
Being Missional means that we contextualize...that we "become all things to all men that by all means we might save some." (1 Cor. 9:22)
Being Missional means that we take the road less travelled, that we become an outgrown rather than an ingrown church.
Being Missional, really Missional, means that we embrace discipleship - that we place a higher importance on spiritual mulitplication than spiritual addition. (2 Tim. 2:2)
Being Missional means that we risk being unpopular. (Gal. 1:10)
Being Missional means that we pay the price and that we persevere. (2 Tim. 4:7)

It can seem so difficult...but when I think of the starfish, it is all worth it.

Heard the story?

An old man was walking his grandson on the beach when they came upon many starfish that had been stranded on the shore. Discovering that a lot of them were still alive, the granfather started picking them up and throwing them in the ocean. The boy said, "Grandpa, there are so many - what difference can you make?" The old man picked another up and said, "For this one, it makes all the difference!"

There are a lot of stranded starfish all around us. The person who cuts your hair, pours your coffee or checks you out at the supermarket. Your banker, lawyer, doctor, neighbor, coworker - faces you see every day. How many do not know Christ? How many are hungry for what we have?

Lord, Help us to see that the fields are white for harvest! (John 4:35) Help us to be Missional!

From Christfollower to Treasuring God

You may have noticed, I changed the name of my blog from Christfollower to Treasuring God. I would like to say this was the result of deep prayer and Bible study. I would love to say that God spoke to me and told me to change the name of my blog. But it was not that. I changed the name of the blog because we are going to create a link from the church website TresureGOD.org...and we wanted it to match.



But...come to think of it, I like the new name better. Christfollower focuses more on action, on performance, while Treasuring God focuses on the heart. The problem with the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7 was not that they didn't do enough. Verse 2 says they did many good works. Their problem was not bad doctrine (again, see verse 2). Their problem was that they didn't Treasure God. They had left their first love.



Somebody recently told me that they have been having a "grace awakening". As they have been learning about God's unconditional love for them, and as they realized that because of the imputation of Christ's rightousness they are "dearly loved" (Col. 3:12), "the apple of His eye" (Zech. 2:8), "their name is written on His hands" (Is. 49:16), and He "rejoices over them with singing" (Zeph. 3:17) - something has happened. Revival is going on. They said that they are finding themselves loving and treasuring God as they once did.



That is what we all need. Because when that happens, everything changes.



Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,

Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.

Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground

And weep for the praise of the mercy I've found.

-John Stocker (1777)

The Red Squiggly Line

One of the hottest new words to describe churches that are on the cutting edge reaching people for Christ today is Missional. Go ahead, type it into a word document and you will see it: The Red Squiggly Line underneath telling you that what you just typed is not a word. Well, maybe it is not officially a word (although I am currently reading a book by Ed Stetzer, "Breaking the Missional Code: Your church can become a missionary to your community") - but Missional IS a concept...a very important concept for all of us in the church to "get".

What does it mean to be Missional? It literally means to think and behave like a missionary. The reason the word (and concept) are so hot is that the church in the US has been so lacking here. Outgrowing the Ingrown Church by Jack Miller sums up the core problem: we tend to focus our energy and resources inward rather than outward. We do not think or act much like missionaries and the results and been disastrous. Randy Pope gave a major address at the PCA General Assembly two years ago on this subject because while the PCA - one of the fastest growing denominations ten years prior - in 2006 had grown by less than 100 nationally! I recently read an aricle that unless something changes, the Southern Baptist Convention is expecting to be cut in half by 2030. Statistics show that 80% of the churches in North America are either stagnant or dying. What is the answer? Maybe it is not all the answer, but certainly a big part ...is that we need to become Missional...and misionally effective!

I will be writing more about this in the weeks to come but let me say this: Being Missional does not simply mean that we support foreign missions. That is important, very important...but that is not really what being Missional is all about. Being Missional does not just mean that you support missionaries...it means you view yourself as one. Do you?

Let me ask you to do a little exercise. Pretend for a few minutes that you are have been called to be a full time missionary. You ask where your assignment is and they tell you Valdosta, GA...or wherever you happen to live. Everywhere you go for the next 24 hours, think about it as a missionary would. If you do that, you will understand better what it means to be Missional.

What have I gotten myself into?

So, here we go. A friend gave me an article by Abraham Piper that pastors should blog...it made sense...so here I go. But really, what have I gotten myself into? I am already busy. But when you believe God is leading you...well, you can complete that sentence.

I told Jackson and his friend Josh (going to Bulgaria with his missionary parents soon as they raise all their support) to a MercyMe concert Saturday. My first experience like this. I was blown away. What worship! What unity and diversity! These guys are committed to God's glory and preached to us that night that it is not about us...but about Him. They very powerfully proclaimed God's sovereignty in word and song. If you don't believe me, check out their lyrics. So much for the broad brush some use to paint all contemporary Christian music as lacking depth.

Jillian, our 25 year old daughter, is planning to come into town this week. She was supposed to fly in Sunday but she was dianosed with mono...and with her already weakened lungs, the doctor wanted to check her out today to see if she should fly at all. If you think about it, pray for her. It is tough to accept physical limitations at 51 - so I can only imagine how tough it is when you are her age.

Listen, you all need to help me. This blogging stuff is new for me so if you have any ideas email me, okay? Is there a spellcheck on this thing? I really could use it. Where is Eric when I need him? Well, that's all for now...

Jim