Celebrity is, in effect, based on an inflated brilliance, accomplishment, or spirituality generated and perpetuated by publicity.  It is an artifice and, therefore, a type of fraud. Where it once served power and patrons, in our own day it mainly serves itself and its pecuniary interests.  Celebrity must, of necessity, draw attention to itself. In American Christianity, the relentless pressure to raise funds within churches and para-church organization reinforces the pressure toward celebrity, with an endless flow of direct mail, advertising, and ghostwritten sermons, speeches, articles, editorials, and so on. These pressures are difficult to resist even for those who, by instinct, might find celebrity either tasteless or problematic. The reason is that celebrity is not just a certain kind of status one achieves but it is also a powerful institution the entire structure of which is oriented toward burnishing a leader’s image and projecting his or her visibility (pg. 260).

My tiny hometown of Dripping Springs, Texas experienced the tragedy of watching First Baptist Church burn to the ground, and at the end of the day it was determined that one of the members of the church had deliberately set fire to the church, and burned it to the ground. The building was set on fire on September 5, 2007 -but the congregation had been heating up for several years before the flames broke out. What had happened was that a group of men sought to take what was a Godly church and shove it in the direction of the Purpose Driven/Seeker Sensitive model. The end of this situation was a congregation destroyed and a building left in ashes.

I have had a lot of time to reflect deeply on what I’ve seen from Rick Warren’s ministry, and I think most of the Purpose Driven model is hateful both to God and man. With this personal conviction, I agree with Tim Challies assessment of the situation and gladly link to his thoughts here.

In Milton’s Day Anglicans, Calvinists, and Arminians had determined that some matters were not important and thus a matter of indifference. In the wake of such a startling opinion they then legislated that everyone should follow their notions of religion since those who held certain objections were holding to items that were of “indifference.” The most startling of these indifferent matters was the baptism of infants, an innovation that the governing authorities approved.

Milton’s objection to the human idea of “indifference”  is that a man’s religion is always an affair between him and his God, and therefore nothing that any man may consider important can be quietly and easily dismissed as an “indifference” by any other man. We are all bound to the Word of God even when others consider that Word secondary, tertiary, indifferent, nonessential, or unimportant.

The Evangelical Free Church began with a group of independent congregations and several churches of the old Swedish Ansgarii Synod and Mission Synod. These groups met together at Boone, Iowa, in 1884 to form a fellowship of “free” congregations. These differing groups became known as the Swedish Evangelical Free Mission which would later be changed to Swedish Evangelical Free Church, and still later they would drop the “Swedish.”  This group merged again in 1950 with the Evangelical Free Church Association which was formerly known as the Norwegian and Danish Evangelical Free Church Association. What we find is diverse ethnicities from various countries moving to America in the late nineteenth and early twenthieth century and clustering into churches that have their same ethnic and cultural familiarities. Over time as the immigrants’ second generation blended and merged into the fabric of American culture, the ethnic peculiarities became less important and were dropped. As the distinctive peculiarities of the different ethnic cultures faded, so did the need for independence from other theologically like-minded congregations. Hence these congregations “merged.” But what did they rally around? What common factor united them?

By agreement in the original organization of the fellowship in 1884, this was to be a body of self-governing congregations, each free to establish its own doctrine. Did you hear that last part? Each “free” to establish its own doctrine. Wow! The several free churches elected delegates to an annual conference that was purely advisory in character. However, a society of ministers and missionaries was organized in 1894 to guide the denomination in doctrine and practice. This is still the guiding principle of the church; the only qualification for membership lies in evidence of conversion and the living of a Christian life. Polity is obviously congregational, but the churches are usually guided by a board of multiple elders which may be more or less biblically qualified.

Do you suppose that the “free” churches could really stay free in terms of doctrine and practice and maintain unity and fellowship around nothing more than their insistence upon “Freedom” to do whatever each congregation thought best for itself? Short answer: no. As already mentioned, a board of ministers and missionaries was organized in 1894 to guide the group in doctrine and practice, and an official twelve-point doctrinal statement was drafted and adopted by the Evangelical Free Church in 1950 when the Norwegians and Danish decided to join.  I should also mention that this group of “free” churches has founded one of the finest seminaries in the world: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, home of the legendary evangelical scholar D.A. Carson. 

Critical Analysis: while I like a certain degree of freedom, independence and autonomy, it is clear that the Evangelical Free Church has fallen a little too far on the independence/autonomy side of the equation. While I like that this group has founded one of the finest seminaries in the world, there can be no certianty of consistent doctrine and practice between the different churches. Paul makes a compelling case for autonomy in Galatians 1:11-12 asserting the independence of the Gospel from any man, but immediately joins this with the injunction of accountability in Galatians 2:2 by voluntarily seeking approval and affirmation from his fellow apostles. Paul himself serves as an instrument of accountability for Peter in Galatians 2:11-14. Autonomy must be carefully balanced with accountability, and I think that the same dangers that face the Baptist Congregations are plaguing the Evangelical Free Congregations. Every church must wrestle to strike the right balance between independence and accountability.

The event was somewhat tragic yet beautiful and endearing to behold. Placement is one of those rare historical events that defies easy classification. There is grief and joy on both sides of the equation. You might be puzzled at this description. Why should there be “grief” you may ask.

There is sorrow and grief for a variety of reasons. First, the entire event is transpiring in the wake of a sad situation. The only reason the child is living with a foster family is because the biological parents have either abandoned him, abused him, traumatized him, been killed, or in some other way been declared as unfit parents to raise this child. That’s sad. The abused child is often removed against his wishes even though he knows he is abused. Despite the abuse, the child still has a deep love for mom and dad and doesn’t want to be separated. The fact that the child has to be placed into foster care at all is a sad event.

Second, the child is now being removed from his foster home. After having spent months, possibly even years, with the foster family and having developed lasting friendships and bonds with foster parents and foster siblings the child is now being removed from this temporary family and placed into the home of yet a new family that he does not know. There is a second round of suffering comparable to what you might find at a funeral. Except one person has not died. It feels like an entire family has died.

Then there is the grief of the adoptive family who is ready and eager to love the boy and take the child home to be their own special little person. They have spent several weeks, possibly a month or more, developing a personal relationship with the foster family and learning all about the boy and preparing to adopt the child. Now as child and foster family hug each other in tears and crying saying their ‘goodbyes’… the adoptive family experiences a sensation of guilt and sorrow for breaking the union. They often feel as if they have intruded into a families home and are now seperating loved ones from each other. They begin to second guess their decision and wonder if it is right to take the child home with them. Guilt and sorrow cloud over what should be a happy occasion. Yet there is still happiness. Everyone is relieved that the boy has finally found a stable home and loving parents. Emotions are chaotic and wild, ranging from joy to guilt to sadness, but there is still a sense of relief and an unmistakable hope for the future. Adoption is brimming with optimism.

I observed all of this transpire today. I realized afresh today that when parents act selfishly, sinfully, and with disregard for the safety and well-being of their children -the ramifications of their sin ripple forward into the lives of dozens of others and hurt many. The consequences of their behavior are life-altering for their children and for many others who step in to make a bad situation tolerable.

In all of this I also see Grace. God’s love is so wide and so deep that He works to cover over many of the ramifications of sin in these situations. He is truly a Father to the fatherless… As I watched the sad and joyful scene of “Placement” unfold today I had to ask myself: what motivated the social workers to investigate and make the hard decision to remove the child from the unsafe home and to take custody away from the unfit parents? Love. Not money. Social workers don’t make any money to do the hard work that they do. So what motivated it? Love. Who gave them this love? God did. What motivated the foster family to foster? Love. Who put this love into their hearts? God did. Who touched the hearts of the adoptive parents to adopt with love? God did. 

From the social workers to the foster family to the adoptive parents, everyone made a choice to step into a nasty situation filled with unpleasantness and to take action to love the orphan among us. They all took steps of love. They all embraced a nasty situation. They all knew that great sadness and hurt and heartache would accompany them on this journey, but they did it anyway knowing full well what was in store.  What motivates this kind of love? Only God moves like this. Only God can grant this love, and it is a love that works through faith.

As I observed “Placement” today, I beheld the wonder and glory of a gracious, merciful, and loving God. I praise the Father for what I was allowed to witness today. Today was a day of Grace. Today was “Placement” day.

I’d like to write on  (1.) the autonomy and freedom of the local church in accountability to other churches (and I would like to explore a structure of denomination/convention that would uphold autonomy and independence yet provide for accountability), (2.) the importance of regenerate membership exclusively in the local church, (3.) baptism by immersion as the personal confession of justification by faith in Christ and the point of entrance into the local church, (4.) close (not necessarily closed) communion and fellowship, (5.) the congregational governance of the local church under the authority of scripture, (6.) the inerrancy of scripture and the sufficiency of scripture for directing all matters of life and faith, (7.) the preisthood and freedom of the individual believer under the authority of the Bible, and (8.) the personal religious freedom of every man to worship God everywhere as a personal choice of his or her own heart (even if they reject God entirely) in a free and unrestricted state without any fear of persecution -to name  a few.

I will champion those eight core convictions until the day I die.  Those 8 core convinctions are historically the domain of Baptists by the way, which brings me to another article that I’d like to write: ”How many Baptists have lost their way.” Another good paper: “Helping Baptists find their way back to their roots.” Anyway, I’d like to elaborate on those ideas at some considerable length.

Like I said… there are a lot of things that I want to write about. I’m just writing about things I want to write about. But the issue is time.

As a young boy I was too afraid to jump from the cliff into the water, but every day of the summer I would watch my older brothers and sister jump this cliff face. And every day they would urge me to do it, always making fun of me when I chickened out at the last second. I can still hear my older brother, Chip, even now, “C’mon Josh! Jump! It’s the greatest thing in the world! Don’t be a baby.” The irony of the situation is that although they ridiculed me for being a ‘baby,’ I could tell that they genuinely enjoyed the sensation of falling through the air and splashing into the water below. But all I knew was the fear of the tremendous height. I was an outsider looking in unable to fully understand the thrill of the plunge and too afraid to trust them.

Yet, this is exactly how the Christian life is begun. For the uninitiated it requires a choice to take the plunge and leap into the loving yet unfamiliar arms of Christ. This decision should be followed by an action of obedience consistent with running off the cliff and leaping into the air! We refer to this cliff-jumping action as Baptism, and trust me -there’s more to this than meets the eye!

For the Christian there really shouldn’t be any distance between believing in Christ, repenting of your sins, and getting baptized. In fact, they should all occur nearly simultaneously once you’ve made the decision to trust in Jesus.

I don’t want to be one of those pastors that has a church full of eager people, but fails to give proper guidance in a timely manner. So consider the following my 1^st Year Discipleship Guide for New Followers of Christ. I’ve chosen books that are easy to read and steer clear of technical jargon.

1. English Standard Version -Study Bible

http://www.crossway.org/catalog/bibles#esv-study

2. Design for Discipleship Series by NavPress (Books 1 through 7)

http://www.christianbook.com/design-for-discipleship-7-leaders-guide/pd/060061?item_code=WW&netp_id=438326&event=ESRCN&view=details

3. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller

http://www.amazon.com/Praying-Life-Connecting-Distracting-World/dp/1600063004

 4. Psalms (A Worship Compilation of Worship Songs based on the Psalms, excellent for accompanying a personal devotion time of prayer and scripture reading.)

http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=M4235-00-21

5. What is a Healthy Church? By Mark Dever

http://www.crossway.org/product/9781581349375

6. Why Small Groups: Together Toward Maturity  edited by C.J. Mahaney

http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=B3150-00-11

7. Fifty Reasons Christ Came to Die by John Piper

http://www.crossway.org/product/158134788X

These books are the seven that I’d absolutely recommend for the new believer and follower of Jesus Christ for their first year of being a Christian. The new Christian needs two things: a good Bible and a great church that is faithful to preach the Bible. For those of you who have found Christ and are currently searching for a church to call home, my prayers are with you!

For many of you this may be your first year to celebrate Good Friday with a clear understanding of what actually took place on this day so many years ago. You may be wondering how to celebrate this date. As you contemplate how to take this time to remember Christ’s crucifixion remember that it is a day of solemn remembrance. My wife and I have been celebrating Passover for several years now by preparing a traditional Jewish Passover meal (without going to the extremes of Kosher cleanliness), but celebrating it with a Christian understanding. Perhaps you might like to try this with your family. If so, I thought I would provide you with a menu to prepare for your meal. The following are menu items from a Traditional Jewish Passover Meal.  

Zeroah: traditionally a piece of roasted lamb shankbone, symbolizing the Paschal sacrificial offering. The Jews would bring the lamb into their home two weeks before the Passover. The animal would become a pet to the family. They would then take it to the Temple Mount at the appropriate time and have it slaughtered for the purposes of roasting it and consuming it in the evening. The death of the lamb was an offering to symbolize the wrath of God on sin. If a lamb was killed and the doors of the home were marked with the blood of the lamb, then the Scriptures promised that God would “pass over” that home and not exact vengeance upon those in the home for their sin. The Zeroah symbolizes the death of an innocent man, Christ, who was and is our friend who died in our place so that God would “pass over” our sins and forgive us. John the Baptist exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29)

Matzoh: Three unleavened matzohs (unleavened bread) are placed within the folds of a napkin. Two are consumed during the dinner, and one (the Aftkomen), is spirited away and hidden during the dinner to be later found as a prize. Leaven represents sin, malice, and evil (1 Corinthians 5:6-8), and was to be removed from the homes of the Jewish people one week before the feast. Matzoh is symbolic of repentance from sin and is to be consumed as a side dish to the Zeroah. The Aftkomen, which is hidden before dinner, is to be searched for by the children at one point during the dinner to teach them the need to constantly be examining and searching out their own heart for any presence of sin in their lives.

Maror: bitter herbs, usually horseradish or romaine lettuce, used to symbolize the bitterness of slavery. These should taste bitter or sour, and should be consumed for the express purpose of putting a bitter taste in the mouth of the participant. This is intended to teach the bitterness of slavery to sin. It is best to eat this before consuming the Zeroah.

Karpas: a vegetable, preferably parsley or celery, representing hope and redemption; served with a bowl of salted water to represent the tears shed in anguish as one waits for the Lord. The Karpas are dipped in the salt water (tears) and then consumed. The Karpas is intended to teach that, although we have been redeemed by the Lord, our life on this earth will still be marked by tears and suffering, but we have the promise that our suffering serves a higher purpose (James 1:2-4).

Allow me to expand on this promise for a moment.

1. God promises to give you shepherds. The first observation I have is this: shepherds must be rather important from God’s view of things, or else He wouldn’t have wasted His time promising them to us. Therefore, it is very important that you find a man to be your shepherd. God says so! Having a shepherd is critical to God’s eternal redemptive plan for your life, so you need to make it your top priority to find one. Some may say that this passage is teaching about Jesus being our shepherd. While that is certianly true, I dont think that’s what this passage is saying. The noun, “shepherds” is in the plural. While Jesus is our great Shepherd, this passage is clearly indicating that there will be multiple shepherds. I’m tempted to use this passage to argue for a plurality of elders in the church, but to be fair to the text I think I would be pushing it a little too far if I did that. I safely conclude, however, that God is talking about modern day pastors and elders -not Christ, and He promises that you need them, and that He will give them to you. What about those who have taken the time to look for one, but have come up empty handed? Good question. There are many, even now, who may be wandering around looking for a place to be cared for, looked after, and nourished –where they know they will be loved and taken care of. This may have been going on for years, and they just might be on the brink of despair. Don’t despair! God promises that He will give you a shepherd. Do you need to stress over whether or not such a man exists? No, because God has spoken and promised that He will provide such a shepherd for you. The man exists; you merely have to trust God and search for him. God says that He will give him to you. The man exists, and he is a gift from God. There’s nothing you need to do but love and trust in God. You don’t need to do the Christian equivalent of a rain dance to make the sky pour down rain, or a pastor-chant for a pastor to pop up out of nowhere. All you need to do is love God, trust God, and wait on God. Maybe you have already searched for a man to call Pastor and have not found him yet. Maybe you have been through all the churches in Kamloops, and still you have not found him. Be patient. God will keep His promise. He will give you a Shepherd.

2. God promises to give you a Shepherd. God has promised to give you a shepherd. Do you want a place to be loved and cared for? Do you want the gift of having a man in your life who will look after you? Do you want someone around that will offer counsel and guidance, a stirring and encouraging word in times of distress, a friend that will love you and take care of you no matter what mess you might inadvertently get yourself into? Do you really want that? Most people will say “Yes, I’d love to have a friend like that.” But, truthfully, they really don’t. A friend like that will love you in such a way that he will not be able to bear it when he sees that you are making decisions which have as their inevitable outcome the sure destruction of your life and the harm of many of those around you. A true friend will speak. He must speak if he loves you. Like a shepherd, he will use a rod and a staff (Psalm 23:4). What’s a rod for? It’s for whacking the sheep when they need some motivation. What’s the staff for? The staff usually has a crook on it so that the shepherd can loop it around the neck of the sheep from a distance and tug him in the right direction. The Psalmist says that the rod and staff are comforting to him. Here’s a modern day translation: “The whackings and neck-jerks that you give me are a comfort to me. Thank you for whacking me and jerking me by the neck on occasion.”  I find it incredibly odd that so many should pine away longingly for a shepherd convinced that God hasn’t provided one for them when clearly He promises that He will. Could it be possible that you’ve said “no” to God’s shepherd due to your hard and rebellious heart? Could it be that you’ve said “no” to God’s shepherd in your life because you refused to listen to the warnings and admonition that he gave you? Could it be possible that you’ve said “no” to God’s promised shepherd because you didn’t want to be shepherded?  God promises to give you a shepherd. If you really want to have a shepherd in your life, and you want to see God keep His promise of giving you a shepherd, then perhaps you should get busy being a submitted sheep. Perhaps you need to work on your humility a little bit, and try a little harder to being open to the gentle corrections and appropriate admonitions from a Godly shepherd.

3. God wants you to have a shepherd after His own Heart. This is where the Word of God begins to cut both ways. It’s easy from a pastor’s perspective to exhort people to find a place of worship and get involved in a local church, and it would be too easy for me to recommend that they come to the Bridge. Before any such recommendation can be made two pivotal questions must be asked: What does it mean to be a shepherd after God’s own heart?Are the pastors here at Bridge Church shepherds after God’s own heart?  I think I’ll save the previous questions for another post for another day. I think that the encouraging word that we can draw from this portion of the text is that God promises to give godly shepherds who are men after God’s own heart. I know that God has demonstrated Himself faithful in this regard. All throughout history the shadows of deception have threatened to plunge humanity into a dark age where there would be no understanding of God, yet God has always preserved a spokesman to speak to His people on His behalf. ALWAYS! So we can trust that if He did it once in the past, He will do it again in the future. He has, and He will! From my own personal experience, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen the leadership from one church stray from God’s heart and suddenly another is lifted up to a position to speak truth to God’s people. God always begins a slow and tedious process (slow and tedious to us because it usually takes four or five years at a minimum, but five years is nothing from God’s perspective of eternity) of removing the offending shepherd and raising up a new shepherd in his place.  So if you find yourself in a church where it is apparent that the leadership has strayed from God’s heart, then take courage in the promise of God to provide a shepherd after His own heart and start searching for a man who follows God’s heart. He’s out there! And if you haven’t found him yet, then be patient because God will keep His promise. **For me, this is a special moment of introspection. Am I a man after God’s own heart? I hope and pray that this is the case. As Paul says, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.” (1 Corinthians 4:4) Likewise, I am not aware of anything against myself. But what should I do if the day comes that I fall before the Lord in failure? What should I do if, after preaching to others, I myself become disqualified? (1 Corinthians 9:27) I have watched so many pastors, deceived by the allure of sin, insist in the middle of significant moral failure that they still deserve to shepherd God’s people. They have clearly fallen from the Heart of God, and they now insist on continuing in a position of leadership. These men only further compound the problem. The church is always harmed, and the advance of the gospel is always slowed down in such situations. Here’s what I’ve decided to do if I am ever caught in moral failure and it is necessary that I must resign my position (I pray that I will follow through with this plan if that day, God forbid, should ever come.): I will use what standing I have left to guide the church towards the shepherd that God has promised to raise up, the shepherd that is a man after God’s own heart. If I sense that God has departed from me and has chosen to raise up a new leader, I want to get on board with God’s plan. I don’t want to be consumed with murderous rage like King Saul. I hope that I will have the heart to trust in the promise of God which is to give a shepherd after His own heart. I pray that I will have the heart to believe this promise and to obey this promise by guiding others towards the shepherd that God lifts up. It is this desire that actually prompted me to put my morning devotion into writing via this blog post, because I would like others to be able to use this blog posting as a tool of reasoning with me should the day, God forbid, ever come that I need to step down. If I fall from being a good pastor, a shepherd after God’s own heart, then may I have grace enough to guide others towards the promised shepherd who will replace me. When you, the members of Bridge Church, pray for me, please pray that I will always strive to be a man after God’s heart, and pray that I will always have the grace to step aside, should the day come, but still use my God-given intellect and knowledge of scripture to guide us toward the promised Shepherd. This is what I want you to pray for me for.

4. Who will feed you knowledge and understanding. This is where the Word makes things easy for both of us. What should you look for in a pastor? What should I try to do as a pastor? There are a lot of different items involved with the job description of a shepherd, but first and foremost is this: a shepherd after God’s own heart should always strive to preach the Word!!! A godly shepherd’s first order of business is to always be ready to proclaim the truth of God’s Word! This passage of text reveals to us that a sheep who loves God and wants to be a sheep after God’s own heart is going to be a sheep that searches diligently for a shepherd who preaches the word and seeks to give knowledge and understanding of the text. A good sheep is hungry for God’s Word. A good shepherd will find a way to deliver a tasty morsel of Word for the sheep to eat. Both the sheep and the shepherd are intricately bound to God at this point because as the one is, after God’s own heart, striving to feed knowledge and understanding of God through His Word, so the other should be striving to consume and digest knowledge and understanding of God. What a wonderful way to arrive at an understanding of godly shepherds and godly sheep: both the shepherd and the sheep, if they share a passion for God and can be described as individuals with a heart after God’s own heart, will be consumed with a love for the text of Scripture, for knowledge of the text, and for understanding of the text. Wow!  This passage makes me want to study scripture even more, and helps me pray that the members of the Bridge would have an ever increasing and insatiable appetite for knowledge and understanding of God!

 I want to close with an exhortation. For those of you who have not found a church home, I’m not exactly recommending us, but I know our church will love and care for you. For those of you who are searching for a pastor after God’s own heart, I’m not saying that I am that man, but I do strive to be that man every day. But here’s my real exhortation: you must be hungry for God’s word. You must have a soul craving for it! If you lack a soul craving for knowledge and understanding of God, then you need to get busy cultivating a healthy appetite, and you need to be in the hunt searching for a shepherd who can feed you. So get hungry, and then get busy looking for a good shepherd.