Church

Reflections on the SBC

/ davidsschrock

[This is the report that I shared with our church upon my return from the Southern Baptist Convention].

This year’s Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix, Arizona was the smallest gathering of Southern Baptists since World War II (1944).  However, its diminutive size (approx. 4,800 messengers) should not discount the importance of the two-day convention (June 14-15).  As Bryant Wright, this year’s president, put it, “I do believe it could prove to be the most spiritually significant convention over the last 50 years.”

Why?  Why would an off-year convention invite such a statement?

In one sentence, it is because the spirit of the convention was filled with unity to complete the task of the Great Commission here and abroad.  Whereas the 2005 convention in Greensboro, NC began with a two-hour debate between on the merits and demerits of  Calvinism.  This year’s convention was marked by unity around the gospel and reaching the 3,800 unengaged, unreached people groups. Again Wright puts it succinctly, “This was the most unified convention around the Great Commission that I have experienced.  People came here with anticipation of that unity.”

Some of those people were three new presidents of Southern Baptist entities.  Each of these men are newly appointed presidents of the NAMB, IMB, and the Executive Committee, and each man energized discussion with striking calls for church planting, missions, and unity.

The Executive Committee

First, Frank Page addressed the convention with more than 20 entity leaders on the platform.  He introduced a resolution affirming unity and cooperation among Southern Baptists.  The last decade has seen a great deal of misunderstanding and name calling at the convention and on blogs, so Page and others have called Southern Baptists to greater unity.  In his address, he said,

“Our convention is fracturing into various groups, some theological, most methodological…Sometimes there is an honest difference of opinion, but often there is self-centeredness that frequently mirrors our own culture… Christ-like selflessness is our only hope.”

With those sentiments he introduced five pledges for Southern Baptists to embrace.

  1. We pledge to maintain a relationship of mutual trust …
  2. We pledge to attribute the highest motives to those engaged in local church ministries and those engaged in denominational service in any level of Convention life …
  3. We pledge to affirm the value of cooperative ministry as the most effective and efficient means of reaching a lost world …
  4. We pledge to embrace our brothers and sisters of every ethnicity, race, and language as equal partners in our collective ministries to engage all people groups with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
  5. We pledge to continue to honor and affirm proportional giving through the Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach as Southern Baptists ….”

I believe these pledges, if kept, will go along way to including all kinds of gospel-minded Southern Baptists, while challenging each Southern Baptist to love, learn, and listen to others who may approach ministry from a different point of view.  My prayer is that this commitment does not reduce biblical precision and doctrinal distinctives, but that maturing Southern Baptists will uphold a spirit of gospel peace even when they disagree on doctrines not spelled out in the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.

The North American Mission Board

Second, Kevin Ezell called Southern Baptists to be honest about numbers.  Boldly, he declared that Southern Baptists like numbers.  We like big numbers.  However, this has led to unqualified and inflated numbers for the convention. This has been a statistical concern for the millions of missing Southern Baptists each Sunday, but Ezell pointed out that it is not just individuals but churches that are missing.  In the words of Jesus, he reported…

”You have heard it said” that NAMB plants close to 1500 church plants a year, “but I say unto you” that NAMB planted 769 churches last year.

You have heard it said that NAMB has over 5100 missionaries, “but I say unto you” that 3480 of those are jointly funded with state conventions, 1839 are missionary spouses, some of whom have ministry assignments and some of whom do not.  He also pointed out that that 1616 are Mission Service Corps volunteers who receive no NAMB funding at all.  Thus the numbers are not as high as we might first think.

Likewise, on the topic of numbers.  Ezell pointed out that through retirement incentives and other compensations, he has reduced the total number of employees at the NAMB head quarters in Alpharetta.  He stressed a desire to do more with less people.  And while this at first sounds cold-hearted or anti-missional.  Here is the payoff.  By reducing the overhead 38%, NAMB will be able to put $8 million dollars into church planting.  Moreover, he pointed out that less than 4% of SBC churches are directly involved in church planting.  Ezell’s challenge: “We must do better.  We are going to do better.”

This leads to the final point.  In addition to improving reporting and oversight of Southern Baptist church plants, he also intends to lead in an initiative to plant more successful church plants.  Thus, he introduced a new initiative to “SEND” church planters into 25 urban centers around the country.

The International Missions Board

Third, Tom Elliff called for Southern Baptists to be more involved in reaching the unreached.   Following the powerful missions message of David Platt, Elliff said,

“This convention has been one long sermon…. There is not one thing I could say” that messengers have not already heard. A lost world, Elliff said, needs churches who consider it unacceptable that there are people groups “who do not have somebody deliberately” trying to engage them with the Gospel.

This call for greater outreach to the unreached was championed by David Platt, whose message from gospel of Matthew reminded Southern Baptists that Jesus will not come until all the nations have heard (Matt 24:14).  And since Jesus has not come, there are still peoples awaiting the Good News.  In fact, current statistics say that 3,800 peoples are awaiting the Good News.

As Platt put it, “”This is not a problem for the International Mission Board to address. This is a problem for every pastor and every local church to address.”

Indeed, it is something that I hope our church will address very shortly.  At the convention, more than 1,000 messengers responded to the call to reach the unengaged, unreached people groups.  I pray that we will too.

The church that shines the farthest shines brightest at home. 

I was tremendously encouraged by the unity of the messengers around the centrality of the gospel.  The divergence of speakers at the pastors’ conference was a good reminder that God is at work among many people, and that even when there are disagreements on things like the order of regeneration and faith, and what the doctrine of election fully means, there can be unity in reaching the lost for Christ.  This was also evident in the conversation between Mark Dever and Paige Patterson.  Again, I am encouraged by the evangelistic unity developing among Southern Baptists who in the past have argued over God’s sovereignty in salvation.

I hope that our church will follow suit.  Satan would love for us to wrangle over lesser points of doctrine, and to miss out on the fact that a lost and dying world is still lost and dying.  It is my hope and prayer and mission to lead our church to be more missions-minded and missional in our own community, even as we continue to grow into a greater understanding of God’s word and a love for one another.  Satan would love for us to question the motives and intents of others, but Christ is raising up an army of gospel-witnessing warriors, and I pray Calvary will be a bastion for such life-saving truth.

I want to thank you for letting me go to the convention this year.  I was motivated and encouraged by the things I saw and heard.  And I pray that all that was planned and promised will come to fruition as the Lord supplies the growth to the seeds that were sown and the plants that were watered.

Other SBC Reviews Consulted For This Report

SBC Annual Convention Videos

Baptist Press

SBC Voices

Trevin Wax

Southern Baptists: An Unfinished Denomination

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, I posted an article on the SBC : “Southern Baptists: An Unregenerate Denomination.”  If left to that singular reflection, it might be assumed that by my assessment, the Southern Baptist Convention is in great peril or that I am a cantankerous critic.  However, I think there is great reason for hope in our convention.  And in spite of the millions of missing Southern Baptists, I think God has mercifully provided for the SBC and revealed once again that he loves those who do not deserve it.

Let me mention just a few of the encouraging things that I see (from my myopically-small point of view) which should be indicators of encouragement, or as C.J. Mahaney likes to call them, “evidences of grace.”

First, before taking my post as pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Seymour, IN, I had the wonderful privilege of helping coordinate the graduation ceremonies at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY.  It was like I got to plan a party for a thousand people three times a year.  Fun!  However, the real joy was in seeing more than 500 graduates sent out into the convention and to the nations each year.  The graduation of these God-called and trained ministers means that God is replenishing his churches.  As these graduates have had the privilege of sitting under some of the best Christian scholars in the world, they are now going out ready to minister, by God’s grace, to a lost and dying world.  And Southern is only one of six Southern Baptist Seminaries that are graduating faithful and equipped men and women.  While this does not assure success, because not every graduate is uniformly committed to God’s call; it is an encouraging as we look to the near future.

May God be pleased to use such institutions now, as he has in the past (for an excellent testimony of how God uses solidly-evangelical seminaries, read the first two chapters of The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray).

Second, the ministry of Mark Dever (IX Marks) among Southern Baptist churches and ministers has been a salubrious antidote to the bloated results of too many church growth strategies.  It is not by accident that Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC is now bursting at the seems with young Christians and has trained and sent out dozens of young men who are committed to the centrality and the purity of the church.  In time and by God’s grace, these pastors-to-be will have a powerful effect on revitalizing “dead” churches.  9 Marks books, conferences, weekenders, and online resources have influenced thousands of pastors to take seriously the role of the church.

Calling attention to 9 biblical, but oft neglected, marks of a healthy church– expositional preaching, biblical theology, biblical conversion, biblical evangelism, biblical leadership, biblical discipleship, church discipline, rightly defining and proclaiming the gospel, and church membership–will surely meet opposition in Sardis-like churches (Rev 3:1), but they are key ingredients to seeing God’s glory in the local church again (Eph 3:8-10).  Joining his ranks are the ministries of Tom Ascol, Johnny Hunt, and countless unnamed church leaders who have invested in training pastors to cherish disciple-making more than numbers inflation.

Third, this years Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida was filled with hope-giving activity.  For starters, the Great Commission Resurgence was received and passed with overwhelming support (75-80%).  While all the details of this will be worked out in the following years, it means that Southern Baptists are wanting to put their money where their mouth is–namely the Great Commission.  The strong support of this motion indicates self-sacrifice and a willingness to reevaluate the ways we are doing ministry today.

Additionally, at the SBC, the list of resolutions that were passed by the convention were very encouraging.  The first resolution was “On the Centrality of the Gospel,” the second emphasized the need for greater “Family Worship,” and the third addressed the “Scandal of Southern Baptist Divorce.”  Each of the reflect the heart of SBC pastors to lead their churches towards greater gospel-centrality, greater family discipleship, and greater accountability to Scripture.  May God be pleased to bring these resolutions to reality.

Fourth, and finally, I am encouraged by the leading spokesmen of our convention, those who possess great conviction and commitment to the gospel.  Younger pastors like David Platt and Matt Chandler are pressing Baptists young and old to suffer joyfully for the sake of the gospel; while seasoned pastors and theologians like Johnny Hunt, Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, and Danny Akin, are leading our denomination towards greater gospel precision and more fervent great commission vision. I pray that new SBC President Bryant Wright will have the same vision and commitment to the gospel.

For all these reasons and more, I believe that the Southern Baptist Convention is an UNFINISHED DENOMINATION.  It is not perfect, but it is petitioning God to work in us, and there are evidences that Christ is answering prayer.   This is why I am glad to be called a Southern Baptist.

Going forward, I hope and pray and believe that the Conservative Resurgence of the last three decades has great potential to cause a Great Commission Resurgence and Gospel Advance in the years ahead.  Still, it won’t just be the leaders in denominational offices that will bring change in local churches; it will be the bi-vocational pastors in small churches faithfully preaching the word of God and the lay leaders who sacrifice their time to invest in the lives of others.  It will be the result of the Spirit of God to grip our hearts to do what Paul said so long ago, “to entrust [the gospel] to faithful men [and women] who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).  It will take a grass-roots movement of gospel-breathing people, living for the sake of Christ’s name, at the expense of their own.  May God be pleased to do that in our generation!

May we who preach the word do so with boldness and consistency, and may we all hear the word with openness and anticipation of what God can do in a people radically surrendered to him.  May we not simply point fingers at others, may we examine our hearts (2 Cor 13:5) and show ourselves to be approved before God.

Lord Christ, galvanize your churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and throughout the world.  Unify us as a cooperative army of gospel-centered churches, wherein the grace of God is proclaimed and the glory of God is displayed.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Southern Baptists: An Unregenerate Denomination?

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

In Major League Baseball, 38% is outstanding.  If you can hit .380, you will be an All-Star and if you can do it year-after-year, you’ll be a Hall-of-Famer.  Sadly, the same may be true in the church. If your church brings in 38% out of its members every week, as the average SBC church does–according to the “SBC 2008 Annual Church Profile Summary”–it may be regarded as a thriving mega-church and the pastor a successful soul-winner.  Yet beneath the active veneer (or trendy website), something more pernicious may be at work.

Revelation 3:1 warns, “You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead,” and in his article, “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination,” Jim Elliff explains why this warning to Sardis applies to the churches of the SBC.

Elliff writes honestly about the condition of our Southern Baptist Churches, and calls for churches to stop playing number games and to find the millions that are missing.  Appealing to the New Testament church, not the neo-evangelical church, he shows from Scripture how every author of the New Testament warns of false conversion and spiritual deception.  He makes the case that if a church is healthy and regenerate, attendance should outnumber membership.  And he points to our baptists forefathers as prime examples.  Citing the work of Greg Wills, he writes:

In the Philadelphia Baptist Association Minutes, our first association, our initial American statistical record shows that five times as many people attended the association’s churches as were on their rolls. Greg Wills in Democratic Religion in the South (Oxford University Press, 1997, p.14) reports that three times the number on the rolls attended Baptist churches, then located mostly along the eastern seaboard when surveyed in 1791 by John Ashlund. In 1835, the Christian Index of Georgia recorded that “not less than twice the number” of members were in attendance.

Today, in rough numbers, it takes 300 people on our rolls to have 100 attenders. In the 1790s, it took only 33. Or, to put it in larger figures, it now takes nearly 3000 people, supposedly won to Christ and baptized, to result in a church attendance of 1000. Then, it took only 333. Our potency has diminished to such an extent that we must “win” and “baptize” over 2,000 more people to get to the same 1000 to attend.

Churches today, who possess the same Holy Spirit, should expect nothing less.  And in truth, we should long to follow in the wake of these Great Awakening churches.

While his article points out a number of depressing features about the health of churches in the SBC, he also points out the possibility for great recovery if we will be honest about the problem and return to preaching the Word of God and applying its principles of church discipline and evaluating sinners according to biblical standards, not decision cards.

Consider, for instance, Elliff’s comments about preaching on regeneration:

It was the preaching of regeneration, with an explanation of its discernible marks, that was the heart of the Great Awakening. J. C. Ryle, in writing of the eighteenth century revival preachers, said that they never for a moment believed that there was any true conversion if it was not accompanied by increasing personal holiness. Such content was the staple of the greatest of awakening preaching throughout the history of revival. Only such a powerful cannon blast of truth could rock the bed of those asleep in Zion.

Love for the brethren, longing for the Word, and desire to serve others are necessary marks of the genuinely converted.  Failure to assemble is a mark of God’s judgment (cf. Heb 10:25-39).  Thus 38% attendance bespeaks of our great need for humility to be honest about our numbers and the condition of our churches.  Only once we properly assess the problem, can we petition God for the solution — a fresh outpouring of his Spirit and a harvest of lasting fruit.

Though it is a bitter pill to swallow, Jim Elliff’s argument points us in the right direction, as he points us to the mirror of God’s word.  The glory of Christ’s church is at stake, as well as the souls of millions of missing “believers.”  May we labor with contrition and confidence for the sake of Christ’s church.

To read the whole thing, see his CCW article “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination.” For more on the nature of a healthy church see Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and Thabiti Anyabwile’s What is a Healthy Church Member?

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church: An Interview with Michael Lawrence

/ davidsschrock

John Starke interviews Michael Lawrence at TGC Reviews, senior pastor (to-be) of Hinson Church (Portland, OR) about his newly published book, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church: A Guide to Ministry.

In the interview, Michael helpfully defines biblical theology as a mediating discipline, which helps properly interpret and apply the Bible.  Thus, he sees biblical theology as a necessary step between understanding what the Bible meant and what it means today, and as the subtitle suggests, this is an essential part of the minister’s task.

I encourage you to check out the interview, and pick up the book.  I just got my copy and look forward to reading it and helping our church see the value of biblical theology.

John’s interview with Michael is one of many resources on TGC Reviews.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

What does it mean to be a member?

/ davidsschrock

What does it mean to be a member of a local church?

John Piper gives a succinct answer that pushes against our Western individualistic impulses.  Here is how he begins:

What I mean by “member” is somebody who, whether by a signature or a word of commitment or promise, says, “I’m committed to a people, a people who hear the word of God preached, a people who perform the ordinances that Jesus gave to his church (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and a people who commit to the ‘one another’ commandments (love each other, exhort each other, admonish each other, hold each other accountable).”

Those commitments are what membership is. And I think something is wrong if you resist putting your name on the line for that.

If you want to say, “OK, I believe the New Testament says, ‘Be a part of a community, give yourself to ministering there and receiving ministry there, and advancing the cause of the gospel there, and upholding the name of Jesus there, and doing mission there,’ and I’m a part of that,” then to resist putting your name on the line for that is probably not a biblical conviction. It’s probably an American, independent, give-me-elbow-room, don’t-get-in-my-face-too-often conviction, which I don’t think is biblical.

You can read the rest of Pastor John’s answer to the question: Is it important for me to become a member of my local church?

I am thankful for the way God has been breaking down my sinful individualism since the day I joined Woodland Park Baptist Church.  I am prayerful that God will continue to conform me into the image of Christ as I do life with the members of his local church.

Being saved from self-centeredness by submitting myself to my brothers and sisters in Christ’s local church, dss

A Word-Driven Ministry

/ davidsschrock

On Wednesday night, I taught through the book of Nehemiah as a part of our year long journey through the Bible–Via Emmaus: A Christ-Centered Walk Through the Bible.  My aim was to show the redemptive-historical features of the book and patterns of salvation that are extant in the book.  However, the book also provides an excellent portrait of godly leadership and a word-driven ministry.  (For more on that see Mark Dever’s chapter on Nehemiah in The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made).

Ezra and Nehemiah are two books that show the sovereignty of God to reestablish God’s people (Israel) in God’s place (Jerusalem).  They also do a great deal to show how YHWH leads Israel back into covenant with himself, and with that covenant renewal comes a laser beam focus on the power of God’s word. For instance, Nehemiah 8 illustrates the way God’s word can transform a people.  And for God’s covenant people today, it gives an excellent motion picture of what the ministry of the word could and should look like.  Even with the differences that exist between that Old Covenant period of Ezra-Nehemiah and the church today, Ezra’s priestly ministration models a commitment to God’s Word worthy of imitation (cf Heb 13:7).

Here are 6 Marks of a Word-Driven Ministry from Nehemiah 8:

  1. Word-Based: There wasn’t any gimmick, program, or contrived technique to change the people.  From morning to midday, Ezra read the Law (v. 3, 5) and Levites gave the sense (v. 7-8). Ezra displayed incredible faithfulness to the Scriptures, and the sufficiency of God’s Word is seen in the fact that they simply read and explained the text, and hearts were moved.  If only, we would have the same commitment today!
  2. Expositional teaching: The kind of teaching that changes lives in Ezra is the kind that simply reads and explains the ‘Bible’. It aims to understand God’s word and make known the plain sense of the inspired Word; it reads the text in context and applies it to our lives. Ezra and his team of “small group leaders” took the word and helped the people understand it.  The words they read surely came form or were based on Law of Moses, and yet they understood the words as speaking to them (cf Deut 32:47).  The result was a deep sense of contrition and thanksgiving, as well as, a reinstitution of the Feast of Booths, which recalled God’s saving work during the Exodus (8:13ff).
  3. Community: A word-driven ministry gathers around the word  in unity and with regularity (v. 1).  In Nemehiah 8 we see men, women, and children gathering as one man to hear God’s word (v. 1, 3, 8) and to receive instruction (v. 7).  As a result, the entire nation repented and rejoiced as they heard the word (8:9-12).  For more on the centrality of the gathered people around the word, see Christopher Ash’s new book, The Priority of Preaching.  The third chapter explains the necessity of the assembly that gathers to hear God’s word: Powerful!)
  4. Plurality of teachers: As Ezra opened God’s Law, he was surrounded by Israelite leaders whose names are recorded in verses 4 and 7.  While Ezra was the leading teacher (a model that is continued in the NT and in churches today), he was not alone (a pattern also continued in the NT and sorely missing in many churches today).  Because the Word is authoritative, it is appropriate to have a plurality of teachers.  In fact, while a church can begin with a singular teacher, it does better to move towards a plurality of leader-teachers, what the NT calls pastor-teachers, elders, and/or shepherds.
  5. Elevation of the Word: Ezra stood on a platform “made for the purpose” of lifting high the Word of God; the people stood to hear it; hands were raised and audible sounds made indicating that this is God’s word– “Amen!”  The people were not stoic recipients of God’s word, nor were they impatient consumers.  They hungered for God’s word and listened with intensity and receptive participation.
  6. Heartfelt Affection: The appropriate response to God’s word is not only cognitive acquisition, but also heartfelt affection.  Those who heard the word of God, were moved to tears (v. 9); they were encouraged to take heart (v. 10), and they wept away rejoicing because they had understood God’s word (v. 11-12).  True understanding is not simply intellectual, it is emotive and volitional, too.  Thus listening to the Word read or preached is not a passive activity.  It requires earnest prayer and heart preparation to be moved by God’s word.  For preachers, too, it is essential that God’s word grips our hearts as much as our heads.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is instructive. Our churches and our pastors would do well to emulate Ezra (cf. Ezra 7:10).  From a cursory reading of Nehemiah, it is evident that God’s people were radically affected by God’s word, in a way that today’s churches need.  Yet tragically, pastors look back on Ezra as though his method is archaic and outmoded.

Ironically, there is more power today in the preaching of God’s word, than Ezra ever knew.  Ezra’s ministry was under the Old Covenant, and thus did not come with the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  With Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension, the promised Holy Spirit has been poured out (Acts 2) and today the power of the Word is incomparably greater (Acts 1:8; cf. 1 Thess 1:5).

Today, preachers should have even greater confidence to proclaim God’s unadulterated Word, because the living and active word is not only true, it is accompanied by the Holy Spirit who convicts, converts, comforts, and conforms God’s children into the image of Christ.  The word of God will not return void, and ministries marked by the Word will accomplish exactly what God intends–salvation and judgment (cf Matt 13:10-17).

May we who proclaim the Word, do so unashamedly, trusting that the seed of the Word will establish the kingdom of God.  It may be foolish to the world, but it is the wisdom and power of God.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Holy Subversion in Your Worship Service

/ davidsschrock

Trevin Wax offers some provocative thoughts on how we should order our worship services.  He considers the place of national holidays for God’s multi-national church and ‘hallmark’ holidays for the people marked out by God.  His comments arise from a recent article in Christianity Today, which offered a variety of opinions on Mother’s Day.

He concludes his thoughts with a number of perceptive questions:

Why should the consumerist culture of the United States dictate what we celebrate as a church?

Why is it that so many American churches celebrate with great fanfare the birth of their nation (July 4) without even so much as mentioning the birth of the church (Pentecost)?

Does the way we order our time shape us as the unique, called-out people of God or merely reinforce our nationalist, consumer-shaped identity?

Trevin’s considerations challenge status quo evangelicalism, but that is why his thoughts are worth considering.  We should always be willing to examine our church practices by the light of Scripture.  Asking whether our church reflects or reshapes the culture around us, is an important prophylactic against watered-down Christianity.  For more on the subject, see  Trevin’s book, Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals.

May we be Salt and Light churches refracting the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all that we do.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

A Better Way to do Church Missions

/ davidsschrock

David Prince and Jeremy Haskins, pastors at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, KY, were recently interviewed in The Towers at Southern Seminary.  They were asked to describe their leadership philosophies and how they have led change at their church.  Their interview is steeped with wisdom, but one section concerning corporate, Gospel-centered ministry stood out.

“A lot of people do ministry in a way that self-consciously segments the entire congregation,” Prince said. “What we try to do is never allow that. If these things matter to the congregation as a whole for the sake of the Gospel then we are all committed to them.

“For example, when we send a mission team out, we don’t say that we are sending a certain group of people out on a mission trip. We say, ‘Ashland Avenue Baptist Church is involved in this mission trip. Some people have involvement here and some have involvement there; the people there are our eyes, hands and mouths for the Gospel.’”

Well said!  May our churches adopt such a “together for the gospel” mindset.  Moreover, may we have a united missional drive that sees whole churches involved in Christ’s mission, so that ‘missions’ is what everyone does, not just those who are leaving American soil.

Until All Hear, dss

Book Review: Deep Church by Jim Belcher

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).

Jim Belcher has written an irenic and constructive proposal for charting a course somewhere between traditional churches and emerging churches.  He calls it “deep church,” and it is his proposal for a “third way” to do church. 

Belcher’s personal bio is interesting.  He is personal friends with nearly all the emergent/emerging leaders, yet his denominational affiliation with the PCA is far more confessional than many of his peers.  As he puts it, he is both an insider and an outsider (23-31).  This makes him an ideal candidate for drafting a conciliatory “third way.”  His writing shows his intimate acquaintance and appreciation for the emerging church, something that stands out against sea of criticism; yet, his theological convictions frame his acceptance of the emerging church. 

After introducing his story in Chapter 1, Belcher ‘defines’ the emerging church in Chapter 2.  He lists seven protests commonly made by “emergents.”  These seven responses to the traditional church outline the rest of the book (see chapters 4-10).   

In Deep Church, Belcher appeals to the likes of C.S. Lewis and calls for a return to “mere Christianity,” or more particularly, “mere ecclesiology.”  Leaning on the early church creeds, he sets out to define ‘two tiers’ of theology—one that “divides the essentials of orthodoxy from the particularities of differing traditions within the boundaries of orthodoxy” (60).  In making this critical distinction, Belcher supposes that churches can improve unity while still recognizing differences.  His point is well made, however his two-tier system lacks a necessary third distinction.  He equates unity within churches to the unity between churches.  However, there must be more unity within a congregation for the church to live in harmony than between two gospel-believing congregations. 

For instance, a Baptist church could clearly partner in an evangelistic campaign with a Presbyterian church, but try to unite these two churches constitutionally and differences concerning (paedo)baptism and church government will erupt.  Many other illustrations could be supplied.  All that to say, Albert Mohler’s theological triage (three-levels of doctrinal distinction) would improve Belcher’s argument, without taking away from the aim of his entire book.

Chapters 4-10 are the core of Deep Church.  The format of each chapter is approximate: he takes up a specific EC protest, considers its validity and it problems from both sides, and then appeals to a particular “expert” on the matter (e.g. Francis Schaeffer on evangelism, Nicholas Wolterstorff on truth, Richard Mouw on the gospel, to name a few).  Then, Belcher concludes with practical steps towards the Deep Church and often illustrates his point with an example from his own experience. 

Overall, Deep Church offers a number of salient points with much food for thought.  Yet, its lack of biblical exposition added to an unwise neglect of 1500 years of church history weakens his argument immensely.  Favoring the church fathers, Belcher disregards the theological advances that have come from the likes of Protestant Reformers, Puritan divines, and congregational theologians.

In sum, Deep Church is orthodox and advances the conversation on twenty-first century ecclesiology.  It will stretch and challenge both traditional and emerging pastors to contextualize the gospel and to think deeply about the church.  But, at the end of the day, because Deep Church grounds its arguments in human authorities and promotes an outdated, Fifth Century ecumenism, I am hesitant to recommend it to church members looking for Biblically-saturated help.  For thoughtful pastors, it is a stimulating book, but for the inquisitive layman books by Clowney, (The Church), Carson (The Church in the Bible and the World; Becoming Conversant with Emerging Church; , Dever (What is a Healthy Church?; Deliberate Church), Stott (The Living Church) and especially J.L. Dagg would be better.

(Other Reviews: Deep Church has gotten a lot of attention in book reviews.  If Belcher’s book interests you, check out the balanced review by Kevin DeYoung  and an excoriating one by Greg Gilbert.  I appreciate Greg’s concern for Belcher’s light treatment of penal substitution–I share his concern with any model of the atonement that truncates the legal and vicarious nature of the cross–but I think DeYoung’s review is more helpful in evaluating Belcher’s third way, which DeYoung describes as the traditional way mediated through Tim Keller.)

 Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Hungry for the Word?

/ davidsschrock

“Behold the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land–not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.  They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it” (Amos 8:10-11).

Such was the condition of Israel in the days of Amos.  Is it the case today? 

Christians flock from one side of the country to the other, in order to hear men who are committed to expounding the word of God.  Consider the number of Bible conferences that will go on this year and next: The Gospel Coalition, Ligonier, Shepherds, T4G, Give Me an Answer,  to name but a few.  It would seem based on our frenetic chasing of Bible teachers and the dearth of biblical substance in so much popular Christianity, that there are hungry people out there–whether they know it or not. 

On that issue, Albert Mohler points to a tragic development in Western evangelical churches–a disinterest in the Word of God.  He cites Mark Galli’s CT article, ‘Yawning at the Word’ and warns that without the word of God, the power of the gospel is lost.  He writes:

In many churches, there is almost no public reading of the Word of God. Worship is filled with music, but congregations seem disinterested in listening to the reading of the Bible. We are called to sing in worship, but the congregation cannot live only on the portions of Scripture that are woven into songs and hymns. Christians need the ministry of the Word as the Bible is read before the congregation and God’s people — young and old, rich and poor, married and unmarried, sick and well — hear it together. The sermon is to consist of the exposition of the Word of God, powerfully and faithfully read, explained, and applied. It is not enough that the sermon take a biblical text as its starting point.

What does Mohler suggest in its place?  He points to the only solution for biblical lethargy–the Bible.  It alone is our cure.  That which bores people is simutaneously what heals them, which means that God has to do a work in the heart of the hearer in order to receive the word.  “Let him who has ears to hear: HEAR!”   But this is not new.

From Moses delivering the law of God, to Josiah reading the law to the people in Jerusalem, to the revival with Ezra after the exile, to the founding of the church in Ephesus, the word of God has been central!   “Give yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim 4:13); “preach and teach the word of God in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2); “read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and [give] the sense,” so that people might understand the reading. (cf. Nehemiah 8:1-8).  The life of the church is sustained by nothing else, for it is the Word of God alone that tells us of our Maker and Redeemer, Jesus Christ (cf. John 5:39; Heb 4:12).  Knowledge of God comes through no other means!

May the Bible fill the pulpits, classrooms, and hallways of our churches.  If it does not, we know that the judgment of God is upon us, and the people of God will dwindle, and those remaining will perish.  For it is the Bible alone that promises us life.  If you are a pastor, may you do no less; if you are a church member may you pray for and expect nothing else. 

God, give your people, starting with me, a fresh hunger for your word.  It is the bread on which we live (Deut 8:3; Matt 4:4).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss