Why Join a Growth Group?

This Sunday (April 15th) Refuge is hosting our first CommunityLINK.  The goal of this event is to connect people to growth groups.  We’ll be having a special set-up in the Fellowship Hall right after our worship experience.

As I push groups, I often wonder why people would actually join one.  We live in a fairly lonely world where people seem content to be individuals. Why get involved in a community?

There are alot of ways to answer that, but the #1 reason that comes to mind is INTENTIONALITY.  Left to ourselves, we tend to drift.  If we want to be intentional in life, we need teaching, training and community.

A church that does this best (better than any I’ve heard of) is Soma Community down in Tacoma, WA.  The following shows the power of some people intentionally doing life in community and trying to live out the Gospel …

 

Missional Communities at Soma in Tacoma

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.” – Bonhoeffer

This blog post from Desiring God has been floating on a few friends’ blogs and Facebook walls … but I still wanted to share it here.

As a leader in a denomination in the midst of a “conversation” about our approach to homosexuality, I need to pay careful attention.

In the article, they talk about how Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood against the unity of the German church because they had departed from true Christianity.

The “Aryan Paragraph” was a Nazi demand that all Jewish officers and eventually members be excluded from the German church. For Bonhoeffer, that un-churched the church.

Un-churching the church means that you’ve walked away from the three marks of a real church, which are defined in the Belgic Confession (Article 29) as:

“

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it.

In the light of history, we can easily agree that Bonhoeffer made the right decision.

Looking at the church of today, we don’t have to worry about an Aryan Paragraph.  We do have other dangers to the church … and in the RCA one of the biggest is the embracing of homosexuality as an accepted practice.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, 84, is the retired professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Munich where he served since 1968. Where Boenhoffer drew the line of church purity at the rejection of Jews, Pannenberg draws it at the approval of homosexual relations.  He wrote:

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. (“Should We Support Gay Marriage? No“)

Read the full post here.

The Biggest Threat to Young People Today is YOU

…Actually, it’s the absence of YOU that is the biggest threat to young people. It’s not drugs or alcohol. It’s the lack of positive adult mentors in their life, and I see it with every at-risk teen I work with.

At least that’s what Josh Shipp, author of The Teen’s Guide to World Domination.  Josh has worked with over two million parents and teens, and has some great insights for us.  He writes:

A teen with a mentor is 46% less likely than their peers to start using illegal drugs. I wholeheartedly believe every student is ONE mentor away from being a success story. This flip side, of course, is every mentor is ONE student away from being a success story. Mentors and students need each other. The student needs an example to follow. The mentor needs the motivation to be a good example. God designed it this way. Leadership is best applied in relationship.

People have always sought to learn from those who were more experienced or more knowledgeable. …People develop best with formal relational leadership.

Consider this: personal life coaching is a $1.5 billion dollar a year industry, and it’s growing rapidly. Why? Because there is a lack of mentorship in our country, and people are so desperate for it they are willing to pay.  I’ve hired life coaches myself, and can be effective for highly-targeted breakthroughs. The problem is, hired guns aren’t truly invested in my life. What life coaching is to mentoring, prostitution is to real love: a degrading substitute for the real thing.

…Youth cannot reach their potential through the influence of peers. They best mature through the influence of older, wiser, and more experienced mentors. If generational segregation was the start of the moral downfall of youth culture, than re-connection through formal mentorship is the logical solution to empower youth against the curse of low expectations.

Here are the four structural components of a vibrant mentoring relationship you can use with a young person in your life:

1. Mentoring works best with formal structure. Truthfully, we adults can be flaky, forgetful and busy, but students can be especially undependable. That is why formal structure is a non-negotiable for me. I like to design a formal mentoring structure that promotes informal relationship.

2. Mentoring works best when done weekly. The old adage that says, “you get out what you put in” rings true with mentoring. If you plan on mentoring a student once a month, you will get a quarter of the impact compared to a weekly meeting. Students need weekly interaction in order to keep you updated with their rapid-changing life. If you can’t do a face-to-face each week, make yourself available via phone or email for real-time conversation. The more at-risk the student is, the more interaction they need to stay accountable to making healthy choices. Daily accessibility helps you stay connected with the student during the fragile “in-between gaps” of the week.

3. Mentoring works best through activities. Students reject clinical environments. They are not interested in therapy sessions; they are interested in friendship. It’s in the best interest of the mentor to discover what the student loves to do and create activities with that in mind. …Watching a movie or playing video games are not ideal. Playing ball, fishing, helping with homework, etc., are activities that provide moments of significant conversation. Be purposeful with every encounter by having at least one thought-evoking and one thought-provoking question that will encourage thinking. An evoking question is designed to draw something out, like, “What problem is in your life right now that you could use help solving?” A provoking question is designed to give a new idea, like, “Would your home-life be more peaceful if you spoke to your mother respectfully?”.  Write these questions down in advance and show up prepared to mentor.

4. Mentoring works best with a goal. It is important that we teach young people how to set goals, work hard, and accomplish something. This skill alone could save their life in the near future. I always encourage the mentor to ask the student, “If I could help you accomplish something in the next three months, what would it be?” No matter how trivial the goal might seem, you have a huge opportunity to take them through the logical process of goal setting and planning. This positions you as their supporter and gives you both a project to work on together. The goal may be to get a bully to stop teasing, asking a girl to the school dance, or passing a math exam. Whatever seems important to them is what you should work on.

Towards the end of His life, Jesus commissioned His followers to “go and make disciples.” The Creator of mankind understood that the best way to help others grow is through the exchange of truth and life. His formal process included an initial call to follow, a clarification of expectations, and a commitment to finish whatever project is started. I am convinced that we MUST respond to His commissioning and follow His example. When we do, we discover what He was trying to teach His followers: more time with less people equals greater impact. I pray that you, too, will answer His call to invest in the next generation. Our future depends on it.

(read more in the article Mentoring: The Ancient Solution for Future Generations on Don Miller’s blog)

LinSanity! Jeremy Lin Isn’t Wasting His Life

I’m more of an NFL guy than an NBA fan … but this story has gotten my attention.

It’s almost like the NBA got jealous of Tim Tebow and needed to have their own faith-based superstar.  (More likely, God was jealous of His glory and sent a godly young man willing to point to Him instead of himself.)

They’re calling it “LinSanity” in New York, and it hit fever pitch recently after Lin’s game winning 3-pointer with less than a second to play in the Knicks win. He finished with 27 points and a career-high 11 assists.

But despite the “LinSanity” he seems to have his head on straight.

The Knicks overnight phenom Jeremy Lin quotes from a section of John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life in an online testimony recorded last June:

God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.

Lin then adds the following commentary about his coming to treasure Jesus more than basketball success:

When Paul wrote in Philippians to press on for an upward prize, he was living for that, and it made his life meaningful (Philippians 3:15). And I realized I had to learn to do the same. I had to learn to stop chasing the perishable prizes of this earth, I had to stop chasing personal glory, I had to learn how to give my best effort to God and trust him with the results. I have to learn to have enough faith to trust in his grace and to trust in his sovereign and perfect plan. I had to submit my will, my desires, my dreams — give it all up to God and say, “Look, I am going to give my best effort, go on the court and play every day for you, and I’m going to let you take care of the rest.” This is something I struggle with every day. . . . Playing for great stats is nice, but that satisfaction — that happiness — is only from game to game. It’s temporary.

Indeed, only in God’s presence is there “fullness of joy,” and only at his right hand are there “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

(HT Desiring God)

Why Do Young People Leave the Church?

Statistics tell us (as does some real-life experience) that young adults between 18-30 tend to wander from the faith … many of whom don’t come back.  Though they don’t always leave for good reasons, it’s important to understand their reasons so that we can communicate to the point of their needs / questions the Good News of Jesus and the value of Christian community.  Their top 6 reasons for leaving are:

Isolationism. One-fourth of 18- to 29-year-olds say church demonizes everything outside church, including the music, movies, culture, and technology that define their generation.

Shallowness. One-third call church boring, about one-fourth say faith is irrelevant and Bible teaching is unclear. One-fifth say God is absent from their church experience.

Anti-science. Up to one-third say the church is out of step on scientific developments and debate.

Sex. The church is perceived as simplistic and judgmental. For a fifth or more, a “just say no” philosophy is insufficient in a techno-porno world. Young Christian singles are as sexually active as their non-churched friends, and many say they feel judged.

Exclusivity. Three in 10 young people feel the church is too exclusive in this pluralistic and multi-cultural age. And the same number feel forced to choose between their faith and their friends.

Doubters. The church is not a safe place to express doubts say over one-third of young people, and one-fourth have serious doubts they’d like to discuss.

—Adapted from a list by David Kinnaman in You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church … and Rethinking Faith

So what do we do?

Kinnaman prescribes intergenerational ministry. “In many churches, this means changing the metaphor from simply passing the baton to the next generation to a more functional, biblical picture of a body – that is, the entire community of faith, across the entire lifespan, working together to fulfill God’s purposes.”

What practical suggestions would you recommend we incorporate at Refuge or your local church?

Log Off and Grow

The curse of social media is that we get inundated with lots of “good” stuff … so much so that we miss out on things that might be “best.”  It takes real mental discipline to skim through blogs, posts and e-mails without being overwhelmed.  If I spend 2-3 hours on Facebook training my mind to be a mile wide and an inch deep, it becomes nearly impossible to narrow my focus.  Honestly, I often find myself in such a “skim” mode that it becomes a habit.  There are times I find myself struggling to go beyond an inch deep … even when reading the Bible.

Neil Postman, in his classic book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” predicted this problem.  In the following quote, he compares the fears of George Orwell to the fears of Huxley.  Orwell wrote about a future ruled by dictators who took our books away.  Huxley wrote about a future so filled with trivia and pabulum that you wouldn’t have to take our books away … because no one would care to read them.

Postman writes:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

This year, consider spending less time on digital media of any sort.  Break away, grab a blank sheet of paper or two and a Bible, and let yourself sink deeply into the truths of God’s grace.

Resolved …

some great advice from the Desiring God blog …

 

 

Back in 1723 Jonathan Edwards chartered a list of resolutions for his life. 70 of them. And he read them once a week.

Matt Perman writes:

[Edwards] shows us that a well lived life doesn’t just happen; it requires intentionality. And intentionality manifests itself in certain “mechanisms” that help us maintain our intentionality. Edwards’ resolutions are one example of such a “mechanism.”

So Edwards is a good example not just of a life that is lived well, but also of the “practical side” of how to actually build that intentionality into our lives, rather than just letting it remain a vague wish that never takes deep root and makes a real difference.

Refusing to be vague, Matt has organized Jonathan Edwards’s resolutions into seven specific categories. This approach is a fresh way to help us apply their wisdom where we live. The categories include:

• Overall Life Mission
• Good Works
• Time Management
• Relationships
• Suffering
• Character
• Spiritual Life

The New Year is upon us. Read through Edwards’s resolutions. Print them out. Consider adopting them as your own for a Christ-exalting, God-entranced vision of all things.

Subscribe to the DG blog here 

God’s Funeral

An exchange between Martin Luther and his wife Katharina:

“Once, when Martin was so depressed that none of Kate’s counsel would help, she put on a black dress.

Luther noticed it and asked, ‘Are you going to a funeral?’

‘No,’ Kate replied, ‘but since you act like God is dead, I wanted to join you in your mourning.’

Luther got the message and recovered.”

—Rudolf K. Markwald and Marilynn Morris Markwald, Katharina Von Bora: A Reformation Life (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002), 139-140.

(HT JT)

Feed People the Way God Created YOU to Feed Them

I read this story today, and had to share it…

Years ago, Sagal had a friend named Morgan who helped developed plays for a theater in New York City. As is often the case with young people, Morgan began to question her significance. She latched onto Mother Teresa as someone who lived a life that “mattered,” and she became a little obsessed. Morgan wanted to be like Mother Teresa so that she would feel significant.

When Morgan learned that Mother Teresa would be visiting the city, she found out which hotel and she waited. When Mother Teresa finally appeared, Morgan ran up to meet her.

As they conversed, Morgan said, “The work you do is so important and so wonderful. I just want to come to Calcutta with you.”

“No,” Mother Teresa replied, “You don’t do this work because you think it’s wonderful. You do this work because you so love the poor people of Calcutta that you can’t be away from them. That’s when you come and do this work.”

Morgan understood.

“What do you do?” Mother Teresa asked.

“What I do isn’t important,” Morgan responded. “I work in a theater and I help put on plays. What use is that?”

“There are so many different kinds of famine in this world,” Mother Teresa said. “In my country, there is a famine of the body. In this country, there is a famine of the spirit. Stay here and feed your people.”

Call me crazy, but I think she’d say the same thing to you.

Scott McClellan is the Editor of Echo Hub and the Director of Echo Conference.

Useful

Discipleship means being fully focused upon Jesus.  That’s why Jesus says, in Luke 9:62, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Tim Keller elaborates on this thought …

“Unless delighting Jesus, resembling him, serving him, and knowing him is your highest priority, the healing power of the kingdom of God will not be flowing through you. You will not be a useful vehicle for it.

…Talking this harshly is not my style, but I’m afraid to mute the smelling–salts-ness of Jesus’ message: Let the dead bury the dead! No one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God! Foxes have holes, birds have nests… But “I have to be the first priority in your life, or you’re not a disciple; if you don’t put me first in your life, it’s not that you’re just uncommitted or lazy, disorganized or undisciplined. No, you just don’t get it! You don’t really see who I am and what I’ve done; you don’t understand the meaning of my life and work. You need to wake up!

(Read the full article here)