The Manhattan Declaration -Your Thoughts

For those of you following current theological urrents, last week the Manhattan Declaration was announced along with a great deal of well known signatories. Included amongst them are people as diverse as Al Mohler and Peter Kreeft. In short, it deals with:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty. 

In today's culture, these are the very things that have come under attack (broadly speaking). So before I delve into what things are covered, I'd like your opinion: What did you think? Would you sign it? Why or Why Not?

To get your thinking going, here is a link from APPRAISING. It has a few questions about the contenet of the declaration.

And a link to Al Mohler's reasons for signing the Declaration.

Lesser Known Motions at the Southern Baptist Convention

Lesser Known Motions at the Southern Baptist Convention

At this week's Southern Baptist Convention, messengers from across the country heard various motions on the floor from banning Mark Driscoll's books, to boycotting Pepsi. Here are a few that you might have missed.

 1. Motion to Boycott Mr. Pib. 

 It was asked that Mr. Pib be boycotted because after reassignment surgery, He will soon be known as Mrs. Pib.  

2. A study of the GRC: Grilled Chicken Resurgence

If we accept it, do the liberals win? A one year study of how this may be a threat to those in the convention who favor grilled chicken. (Note: this may lead to boycotting KFC next year).

3. Petition to ask Al Mohler to stop twittering.

Because we're sure that twittering is as addictive as alcohol! 

4. A Day of mourning on John Calvin's 500th Birthday.

The man is a menace.

5. Banning all Veggie Tales videos from Lifeway Bookstores.

Talking vegetables are possesed I tell you!!!!! 

6. Move to NOT have the 2010 Convention in Florida.

Aren't we still boycotting Disney?

7. Make the KJV the official translation of the SBC.

If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for us. 

(Hope you had a laugh. Seriously, if you really thought I'm exaggerating, take a look at this!) (Via TolbertReport)

David Wells on the church in the West

I go to Africa every year because I serve on the board of a Christian foundation which is building orphanages for children, most of whom have been left behind by AIDS. I am always struck by this paradox, if that is what it is. Here in America we have everything, but despite everything we have (Bibles, church buildings, theological education, colleges, money, know-how), the evangelical church is weak and stumbling. In Africa, amidst great poverty and disease, illiteracy and deprivation, rampant independency and woeful alliances with traditional African religions, there is still to be found courage, vibrancy, and a Christian testimony to the truth of God that is striking by Western standards. Let us not forget who saved the Church of England from their pathetic willingness to capitulate to the homosexual agenda. It was the African bishops, not those from America or Europe! God, you know, does not have his hands tied simply because we in America have all the money!

MIssional Church?

OK, if you haven't been paying attention to the blogosphere, (or Google Trends) you no doubt have heard that the word of the day is MISSIONAL. For many, this word is associated with Emergent (and in some ways this is post-emergent) and in some circles it is being seen as the rise of something new (as well as theologically responsible). I've seen see it on the blogs of people like Dan Kimball (who has a new missional network developing that will be based on the highly evangelistic Lausanne Covenant) and even at Monergism, the Reformed (and Reformed friendly) Missional voices of Driscoll, Keller and Stetzer are beginning to be heard. So what is this?

It would seem (according to Google Trends) that somewhere in the last two years in this country, Canada and Australia, people have begun to wonder the same thing. And as a result, ministry in the west is taking a new direction. I think this is very important. Most statistics show that this country is already losing people its Christian population (to say nothing of the spiritual desert Europe is in). We are starting to see the West as a mission field again. Thus many are starting to think like missionaries again. I'm glad that I'll soon to be joining the SBC because this has always been their ethos. They were begun by Reformed Missionaries (the Founders) and they have a branch dedicated to missions in this continent too!

I'm glad to see Reformed people are playing a role is this shift. Thanks to people like Tim Keller, and Mark Driscoll. If you can think of anyone else let me know in the comments. The more I look into it, the more I know I will have to say about it. But for now, here are a few places that have gobs and gobs of info for you to think about
JR Woodward's blog
Simply Misional Blog
Ed Stetzer's Blog
The Resurgence
Acts 29 Network
Monergism Articles

Lots to think about, but as I read Stetzer's book (Breaking the Missional Code) and other books on the subject (I'll be going though the Redeemer Church Planting manual with my Pastor this year) I know I will have more to say. Stay tuned.

Female Priests

At one point I'd like to talk about female roles in the church from a complementarian perspective (not as limiting as you might think!) but here is an example of what many churches are going to be facing. Thanks to A Little Leaven for pointing this out.

What's the state of the church? Watch this.....

Take a look at the following clip. It comes from Michael Horton's "Christless Christianity" project. It should speak for itself. But I do have something to add at the end.



If you missed it, Roger Olson (Arminian) Marva Dawn (Paleo-orthodox Lutheran) and Scot Mcknight (Emergent leaning/NPP/Anabaptist) also appear in this video. Normally we stay away from people of other (almost contradictory) traditions, but if even they can see that there is a problem, it shouldn't surprise us that Horton's book is necessary. It should also make us think of what we're going to do about it? What is your church situation like? Is it like what is being presented in this clip? Is it only about how God can make you happy? If it is, what will you do about it? I recommend reading Christless Christianity and giving a copy to your church leadership.

But, I'd like to hear from you as well. What is the problem? What are some solutions?

Why are people leaving church? WATCH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to extremetheology.com for this.
I will say it again, we NEED TO WAKE UP!!!!

Death of the MegaChurch?

According to USA Today most mega churches are just barely squeeking by. They aren't really growing. Unbelievers are still not visiting and these churches keep shuffling people from other churches. When you consider the million dollar budgets some of these places have, one wonders: where does it all go? It's what I and many others have been saying for years: church is for believers. When you make it about the seeker (unbeliever) you'll do what you have to in order to get attention. Even more so, it's not even about us, it's about glorifying God. I find it hard to see how that can happen when pastors are doing everything from the ridiculous to the near blasphemous at church on Sunday morning. One quote stands out

"The megachurch story is not really about growth, it's about shifting allegiances. People want to feel good about who they already are," says Philip Goff, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis. "If church is too challenging or not entertaining, they'll move on."

Sadly, it's not about entertaining, and it's supposed to be challenging. We have to have our lives challenged by God's word. Look at how many times Jesus upset people with his words. Not very seeker sensitive. It goes on to say:

"You can create a church that's big, but is still not transforming people. Without transformation, the Christian message is not advanced," says Ed Stetzer, head of Lifeway Research in Nashville, which did the Outreach study.

As someone pointed elsewhere (Aldous Huxley in Brave New World I think) we will be ruled by our pleasures. When the church buys into the entertainment model, pleasure has gone to church. Any wonder there have been a slew of churches reaching those "controversial" sex sermons?

I highly recommend this great post by my friend SoiSauce (Jonathan Chan) called: Why I'm not Evangelical. He gets to the heart of what I'm trying to say.

Will we learn? I don't know but, here are a few responses from the article. Some are funny, but the first one catches the spirit that has captured many American churches.

Stats show the average worshiper only gives 2.3% of their income!
Stats show that 80-90% of Mega church attenders come from other churches.
However, mega churches do a great job of meeting felt needs geared toward a culture that seeks to get what it wants, feel good help now!
It's cheap entertainment as long as you don't let them suck 10% tithing out of you.
Music. Lots of good looking women in nice clothes.
You get to sit next to a pretty gal who wouldn't give you a glance on the street; and more than likely the minister will tell everybody to hug each other.....thatsa very nice.

If the preacher tells a good yarn...so much the better.
Best actors in town by far. You almost believe that they believe, but you know better.

Walmart could go into the God business and start their own religion. You could shop on Sunday morning and attend church at the same time. They could have a sale on "spirituality." Everything else is for sale in this country. Only $2.98 for $5 worth of spirituality. They could hire Rev. Osteen to be a greeter. He could stand at the door and flash his saccharine smile as people enter the church/store.

I went to a mega-church in atlanta with a friend a few years back and it was aweful. It was managed like a concert or stage act and it did not feel like church. And considering they gave me a tithing envelope (they accepted Visa) on my way in, passed a plate, and asked each of us for our envelopes on the way out I was pretty happy to be back at my smaller church with the bigger faith. Religion is not about treating people like cattle. Not everyone wants a Wal-Mart meets rock concert version of religion.

Yes, Jesus taught not to judge, but he also warned about false prophets.
A sermon is not a Christian sermon if it excludes what Jesus did on the cross.
Gospel is first a bad news before it is a good news. You can just pick and choose what you want to hear.

I hope this will be the death of the Mega Church. How about just building a small church and invest the other 50 million dollars on the less fortunate?

Burn Your Plastic Jesus!!!!!!

Wow. This is so old school pentecostal (assuming they really will burn a plastic Jesus). Mark Driscoll (who else?) is going to be teaching in Australia next week at a huge event called "Burn Your Plastic Jesus". The event will be held at a huge arena in Sydney. About 5,000 people are expected to show up. Keep the event in prayer. I might add, I hope they really do burn down a bunch of Jesus Junk. It would be very funny.

Church Stupidity: Some Serious Observations

As I've pointed out this week. Some pastor's have gone to some ridiculous length's to get attention. Too far in this bloggers view. Here again are the two clips I put up this week.






The Christian Post has reported on another motorcycle church accident, and I wanted to post some of the comments people have left. Some funny, and a few that are thought provoking.

This reminds me of a pastor who came to church with a snake to preach about satan..at the end..was taken to hospital

What effort some pastors will make to try to reach their audiance...good thing none were in the front row!

Actually it reminds me of 2 Timothy 4: 3-4

For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.

Yeah ridiculous eh? I went to a "Christian Faith Center" for a Sunday service one fine Sunday morning a few years ago, and they had a Elvis impersonator up on stage (what ever happened to the altar) swinging his hips and singing a "gospel" song. I couldn't believe it! If I wanted to go watch "Elvis" I'd have gone out last night and had a cold Canadian beer at one of the local nightclubs. I'd left that lifestyle behind years ago when I was a younger man, I certainly didn't expect to see it in "church". It was exactly these wacky ideas that brought this prodigal son back Home! This isn't worship! Worship isn't about singing, dancing, telling stories about my summer vacation (ie mission trip), instead that can be done on a weekday night! Worship isn't about showing off your motor bike, that's just vanity! Lord have mercy!

If the Granger Church incident is showing us something, it's time to get the fun and games out of church, and go back to the preaching of the Word. (Ok that sounded a bit harsh, I think church should be great and can be fun, but seriously, a motorcycle in church?)

Even MORE church stupidity

Thanks to my new frequent visitor Lorikate (you hear that Lydia and Josh!!) for these clips. You can find them on her blogs (yes two of them)
From the blog Fun and Games


This one is just sad, funny, creepy and sad (again) all at once. I agree with her COME ONE!!!!


And from Jesus Filter



Techno worship. And did that guy really say shamalama ding dong at about 1:50??? We really need to fight against churches like this.

It's things like this that made me into the church/culture critic (and semi-apologist) that I am. If you go to a church like this, please please please leave. I beg you, it's damaging to your spiritual health, and blasphemous to the Spirit at worst. Read my post below about Evangelical gullibility. In all things test what you hear by Scripture. It doesn't matter if someone speaks in a million tongues. If what they are doing is disorderly (God is a God of Order)or if they are teaching weird things or even acting weird, please get out as soon as you can.

Pastors Gone Wild! (Or more church stupidity)

What is it with Pastors trying to look cool by showing up on stage with a motorcycle?
As I said in a previous post, we sometimes bring the trouble on ourselves for the dumb things that get done in Jesus' name.



And no Pastors were hurt in the making of this clip-yet......

Purpose Driven Sadness....

Granger Community Church (the 6th most influential church in the country) and proponent of purpose driven/seeker sensitive models of ministry, released the findings of the church. This is an internal review of where the church is. You can listen to the sermon here (called "Change is Good") and the results are sad. Very sad. Here are a few sobering (the pastors own words) findings:
Granger’s own qualitative study revealed that:

47% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe in salvation by grace.

57% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe in the authority of the Bible.

56% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe Jesus is the only way to eternal life.

If you see the service on-line, the worship feels like a concert. As a matter of fact they begin by playing Goo Goo Dolls song (without the words I might add-can't they go the whole way?) and to his credit the pastor does preach. He acknowledges that things need to change. Could it be that trying to be relevant and hip and well SEEKER SENSITIVE is the result of this whole fiasco?

Chris Rosebrough of Alittleleaven.com comments:

"47% of those attending Granger DO NOT believe in salvation by grace. (This means they are NOT Christians, regardless of whether or not they identify themselves as those who are 'Growing in Christ' or 'Christ Centered')"

And most poignantly
"This is exactly what we should expect from churches that spend their time trying to be 'relevant' and scratch itching ears rather than preaching and teaching God's Word in season and out of season. Or to put it another way, Christless Christianity is completely impotent when it comes to making Christians and Christian Disciples. These survey results prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

These results are a complete train wreck and prove that it is time to abandon the circus church approach and get back to the 'boring' and 'irrelevant' work of preaching and teaching God's Word, the Lord's Supper and proclaiming Jesus Christ as crucified for our sins."

(You can listen to his Pirate Christian Radio show to get his full analysis-worth hearing)

I agree. I had to take a class on church growth at school and this was the kind of stuff they talked to us about doing. I wonder o=what my old Prof. has to say about this? If they did a survey of places like Saddleback, Mosaic, the Southern Baptist Convention in general and other places, I wonder if the results would be the same. This is proof that you can be big and not healthy.

Pirate Christian Radio: it's good!

Fighting for the Faith is hosted by Chris Rosebrough of alittleleaven.com. He started Pirate Christian Radio and has his show hosted there. It looks pretty good. This episode deals with the book: Pop Goes the Church. He deals with the ideas it comes up with. The pastor who wrote it believes we should be more sensitive to pop culture and use it in reaching people. I've been to the website. One of his current sermon series is called "Change We Can Believe In". This weeks sermon begins with the worship team playing the song,"Starlight". A pretty decent version I might add. Still, as I lamented before, is this what it has become? Playing a secular song at church to get attention and feel relevant? I think at some point I'd like to do a study on relevance. Cause it seems there are may different uses and abuses of the word.

Very Funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click HERE Now, is this what we should be doing at church?
(special thanks to alittleleaven.com)

What!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!?

OK class, what is wrong (and sacrilegious) about this? Extra points if you can watch through the whole thing. I think I have now seen it all at church. If this is what it has come to for these guys in Lakeland and in the church in general, I give up. *sigh*....... Sad to say many will actually defend this. (note: I am charismatic reformed and have no problem with praise songs, but using music alone to get people into a stir is psychological manipulation and not a move of the Spirit. Trust me, I've seen people jump and dance to worship God...this is something else-GHOST!)



And for context here's the original song by Dead or Alive-extra points:is that a guy or a girl?

PAGAN!!!!

No not us! Thanks to Chris Roseborough (pictured l-r: Glenn Leatherman, Odd Thomas, Chris, Stephen Macasill of biblicalthought and Fusion!:)) Lutheran extrordinaire at alittleleaven.com for this humorous piece. I have thumbed through the book. *sigh* Some books were not meant for human consumption. I might add, Barna's name is splashed all over the cover and he wrote a little bit of it. A bit misleading. (Wondering aside: who is he trying to impress or kiss up to? Someone like this? Gotta sell books to someone I guess)
Anywho here is Chris's piece. Enjoy.

Pagan Christianity (gasp)

We just finished reading a book written by George Barna entitled "Pagan Christianity". Aside from being one of the most poorly researched books we've run across, it's 'arguments' are probably some of the lamest that we've ever read (Barna and Viola literally cherry pick their evidence and ignore the large body of evidence that easily overturns their claims). The book basically argues that just about everything that we do in church is a form of paganism. Barna is not talking about things like praying to the saints. Instead he's literally arguing against anything that is 'institutional' including having a church building and a pastor who preaches sermons on Sunday. Many of Barna's arguments are just silly. The basic thesis is:

"The pagans did this type of stuff before Christians. Therefore, the church must have copied it from the pagans".

(See the list below of the pagan elements that are in church, according to Barna).


Well Mr. Barna, we have terrible news for you. We hate to be the ones having to break this to you. But, we have research that proves that pagans were writing books long before Christians were writing books. Therefore, it is clear that books are pagan. Therefore, Christians shouldn't be reading books, including (and especially) your books.
******************************************************
Hope you enjoyed that. Here is a very cool review of the book from Ben Witherington III.

Very, Very, Very Interesting.......

Ahhh youth.....3:23 is very interesting.....3:55 is interesting as well




So here's a response I found....here's how people are fed.....

The Sinners Prayer

LISTEN TO THIS!!!!

J.I. Packer, Knowing Scripture and the Church

As many of you know, I'm reformed. It was through the ministries of Robert Morey, John Piper and R. C. Sproul that I traveled from my uninformed Christian world-view, to the light of the Reformation. Indeed, the light of the Word of God. It's been a great journey. Sproul's radio show along with Dr. Morey's radio show that played a huge role. I'm currently reading Sproul's book "Knowing Scripture" and the introduction written 31 years ago, by J.I. Packer, is very interesting.
For those of you who are't following Anglican news (the few of you who don't) The Anglican church is going through a change. The Archbishop has been behind changes in the church that include the blessing of same-sex marriages. Many within the church (notably African and South American and Conservative Western churches) have begun to distance themselves. Packer (an Evangelical and Anglican and author of great books like "Knowing God" and an upcoming systematic theology) has gone with his church and they have aligned themselves with the Church of the Southern Cone (The Southern Cone is Argentina in South America). As a result, Packer and other's will be suspended from the Anglican church of Canada. The reason is because it is the conservative branch of the Anglican Church that has opposed the new changes. I might add, that for the first time in centuries, Anglicans are looking to someone in South America (The Bishop of Argentina) as their leader. This is only the beginning, as stats show that in the future Christianity will be stronger in Asia, Africa and South America.
Why is this important? Packer write in his introduction to Sproul's book:
If I were the devil... I should try to distract all clergy from preaching and teaching the Bible... I should broadcast doubts about the truth and relevance of and good sense and straightforwardness of the Bible....At all costs I should want to keep from using their minds in a disciplined way to get the measure of its message.


The Anglican church has now with it's approval of the New Perspective on Paul, and it's blessing of same-sex marriages and even the Archbishops shameful statements about Sharia law being practiced in England, show that it is time to "come out from among them and be different". They have let the devil take them from the pure milk of the word. The Bible has been taken down, and popular opinion has been allowed to take over. Keep the church in prayer as they begin anew with new leadership from the Southern Cone.