Theology, says J.I. Packer, is the study of God. Over the centuries, a vast number of people have presented to the world their unique take on the subject.
Sometimes, the packaging has been tailored for a specific audience. And, sometimes the core has been suspect, if not outright heretical.
Author Christian George’s latest book, Godology, has content that can appeal to a young, contemporary, 21st-century Western audience but Christians of all ages can appreciate its contents. Its core contains Reformed theology, not heresy, but isn’t about promoting Calvinism or being “cool”; it’s ultimately about pointing the reader to God and various expressions of Himself.
George takes on eleven subjects written about countless times before by other authors: God’s unity, power, creativity, vulnerabilty, holiness, love, jealousy, wisdom, patience, mystery and eternality. He also pairs each subject with a spiritual discipline such as fasting or journaling (he makes an interesting, not-necessarily-evangelical choice for the chapter on mystery: labyrinth walking).
The difference with George from most of these other authors is in how he presents these subjects.
He specificially uses non-religious and theological language, including contemporary pop culture reference, to illustrate theological concepts. For example, the chapter on God’s holiness is titled Chocolate for the Soul:
What does it mean to be holy? Holiness is to be set apart. It’s the lone Kit Kat bar in a bucket of Butterfingers. (p. 66)
And, from the chapter on wisdom, titled Inbox:
We can question the Bible, but beware; the Bible can question us back. God’s Word is samurai sharp, slashing through armor and cutting through pride. (p. 116)
Most Christian books are saturated with Christianese and/or theological terms understandable mainly to those who are part of the Christian subculture.
Godology attempts to make known important aspects of God, and various disciplines of the Christian faith, by using concepts and ideas known to any human being, and largely succeeds.
Some Christians will be tempted to use this as an evangelistic tool because of the lack of Christianese and selected contemporary cultural references.
I see it best used as a resource for someone who
- wants to know important aspects of God and disciplines a Christian should be practicing in his or her life, without having to know a lot of theological words or Christianese or having to wade through 1,000-page systematic theologies (there’s probably 140 pages of actual content in the book)
- needs to hear them from a solid Biblical and theological point of view
- should hear them from someone who lives in the world and knows what’s going on and isn’t of it but is of the kingdom of God.
George meets these criteria, I believe.
There may be better books out there than Godology for what it aims to do, but it’s a solid enough choice to the reader to go with.
P.S. I obtained a copy of Godology in a giveaway promotion from another blog.
Tags: Book review, Christian George, God, Godology, spiritual disciplines
I’ll have more to say tomorrow regarding this. The very short version is I haven’t been posting because I had nothing to write about…but now I want to get BrianD Blog back up and running.
More and more churches seem to be going, or at least considering, multi-site - one leader, or group of leaders, over several campuses in the church’s geographical area. With some churches, it’s that and campuses in other states and countries.
This article from Collide Magazine on multi-site includes the following:
Specifically, I’m imagining a world in which a church doesn’t need a teaching pastor on staff. Instead, they just need someone to download a sermon from VideoTeaching.com and hit Play when the lights go down. Maybe the church would rely on their executive pastor to play the role of “sermon VJ,” carefully browsing the VideoTeaching.com library every few weeks and selecting the messages that the local church needs to hear.
I’m imagining a world in which a church planter could choose a city, plant a church in which Mark Driscoll sermons will be played every week VideoTeaching.com, and then use Facebook and Google Adwords to let Driscoll fans in his city know about the new church plant. Obviously, that wouldn’t work well in the Seattle area, but what if somebody tried it Kansas City? Could you put find a worship leader, a space to meet, and 50-100 Driscoll-loving KC residents to join you at your new church?
Well, something similar is already in the works, and our friends from Mark Driscoll’s church, Mars Hill, are leading the way. In fact, one existing, autonomous church has joined that church and will become a regional campus.
I have questions.
No matter how good of a speaker Mark Driscoll (or anyone else) is, or no matter how good his theology is, why put him on video in front of a congregation in another state, thousands of miles away?
I’ve alluded before to being in a large church gathering, watching the pastor/minister/speaker speak and looking like a giant action figure in the back of the auditorium. I’ve also noticed that, in large churches, seeing that action figure speak - and perhaps shaking his hand after the service - is all the interaction most people get with him period.
So, in one sense there’s really no difference between seeing Mark Driscoll or Andy Stanley speak on a giant video screen, versus seeing them speak live, in a huge congregation, except not being able to shake the video speaker’s hand after the service.
Of course, if your small church goes from Pastor Joe to Pastor Mark or Pastor Andy - well, if they let Joe remain the campus pastor you can still shake his hand.
There are pros and cons in the whole multi-site thing, and the recent IXMarks ejournal speaks to all sides of the issue rather well. But, here are some things that right now are my convictions on the matter.
I believe the pastor preaching to the congregation needs to be local to that congregation. In Louisville, one existing campus and another planned campus for Southeast Christian are not in the city proper, and the ministers speak on video. But these campuses are in the area, and leadership can speak to those campuses more effectively because they live in their area. Sojourn also is planting new campuses, but with live preaching…and the same principle about speaking to local issues, knowing what the needs are locally, apply. I cannot fathom how a campus plant for Mars Hill or North Point, with leadership in another part of the country and the preacher on video, can ever speak other than to a general, national audience.
I believe that a number of churches will try this, especially if it seems to “work” well. But there will be pushback: traditional churches will remain (though the overall number may dwindle for other reasons), some believers may flee to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, and some more may follow Frank Viola and do the home church thing.
Tags: Andy Stanley, church, mark driscoll, multi-site, video church, video venues
There’s a YouTube video Zach Nielsen linked to today that is stunning. A simple, 2:59 video of a woman going in for an abortion, filmed in black and white. I watched it without sound, and the last minute floored me. Warning: the last minute is not for the faint of heart (and possibly a reason why this video wasn’t shot in color). It is one more reason why I am pro-life.
I won’t post it here - you’ll have to go to Zach’s blog to watch it.
Michael Spencer - the Internet Monk, and one of the most prolific and widely read bloggers in the Christian blogosphere - turned his attention to the prosperity gospel.
He compiled a list and asked his readers to pick whether each item reflected the prosperity gospel or not. My comment on his thread is below.
I could come up with examples like TBN pastors and prophets flying around the country in private jets, dining at expensive restaurants, buying the best clothing, vacationing in places like Tahiti and Europe that most of us will visit only in Google Maps.
But what I am wondering is how the prosperity gospel - and the Christian television industry that has helped propagate it - has influenced the body of Christ at large.
Do you ever see any ugly preachers on TV?
Any ugly CCM singers or bands?
Any ugly Christian personalities?
On Christian TV, do you ever see a program, or interview with, or church pastored by, people who live in the hood or in a lower class part of town?
When public christian personalities look like they hold down nice jobs, make enough money to at least put them in nice homes in nice suburban neighborhoods and clothe them from places like Nordstrom’s and Old Navy, and put their kids in nice, suburban public or private schools…and it’s implied that this is to be the norm for all Christians…is that the legacy of the prosperity gospel?
What do you think?
Tags: Christianity, prosperity gospel, suburbia
…while I figure out what I am going to write about next 
I’m not giving up blogging…just on pause for the next week or so.
Catch me in the meantime on my Twitter feed or at phoenixpreacher.com.
Like many of Ed Stetzer’s books, Lost and Found isn’t written as a novel or as a self-help book designed to make you a better Christian.
It contains a lot of charts, graphs, numbers and other info that won’t necessarily appeal to someone looking for their best life now or how to lose weight the Bible way.
But even if you’d rather read Beth Moore, Joel Osteen or Rick Warren, the information Lost and Found contains is important in its own right, and will be something that church leaders and anyone interested in the next few generations of Christianity will want to read.
The first two parts of the book, Polling and Listening, are chock-full of graphs and statistics that offer evidence for the main point of Stetzer and his co-authors Jason Hayes and Richie Stanley: people in their 20s (largely) believe and are interested in the God of the Bible, and in Jesus, but not very interested in the church.
The third and final part of the book, Reaching, offers specific examples of how churches are recognizing and responding to that trend. It contains interesting and helpful examples of how churches use technology, service and authenticity, and are connecting young adults to one another and to the church. It also addresses young adults serving in churches, and how people are looking to serve (or have to be challenged to do so).
As I’m not directly in ministry, the content here isn’t really helpful to me other than helping clarify my knowledge of twentysomethings and how they’re relating to the Christian faith. But I see where this book would be a good resource for those in ministry seeking to understand their communities - and this is what I have in mind in recommending Lost and Found.
You may purchase the book through Amazon.
Note: A copy of the book was provided to me by Lifeway for review, and I wish to apologize for not posting it sooner. I thought I had until the end of this month to review it; they asked for a review to be posted within February.
Tags: Book discussion, Book review, Ed Stetzer, lost and found
The YouTube video is an excerpt of a sermon by S.M. Lockridge, with video from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ movie.
Have a great weekend and a great Easter Sunday.
Tags: Good Friday
Within Christianity, there has been lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the “post-Christian” direction American culture apparently is heading in.
Even though there are megachurches all over the place; an overabundance of Christian media (how many Air1, CSN and K-Love stations can you get on your radio?); a long history of Christian political activism; and a subculture that offers the Christian version of just about everything the world has to offer.
If society is circling the drain, as some pundits might suggest, it stands to reason those pundits would also lament the loss of the dominance of Christianity within the society.
In his very short blog post, pastor Thabiti Anyabwile gets what much of the church seems to be struggling to understand. Read it; it’s shorter than this post
And Anyabwile seems to get this point in particular: when society is no longer influenced at all by the subculture that has passed for Christianity, the true church will remain, looking to spread the gospel through post-Christian America like butter on a piece of bread.
Tags: Christian subculture, Christianity, evangelicalism, religious right
Here are the opening lines: What you do differently…
if you really believed,
that you really were a child of God?
that you really were unconditionally loved by your God?
that you really were forgiven?
that God really is sovereign ?
that you really can’t mess this thing up?”
What would I do?
Would I do anything differently?
Would my sinful nature keep me doing the same things I’m doing now?
It boils down for me to one thing: what’s going on in my heart and head?
If my heart and head are wrong, then I can’t really change until I address that, now can I?
But how do I change…when my own head and heart are broken, just like the rest of this world?
Like Michael Newnham, the author of the linked article, I live in a world of guilt and doubt and wounds caused by other careless, broken people like myself.
The whole world is full of brokenness, and I am a contributor to that, despite mine attempting to deceive myself into thinking I am the victim and everyone else is at fault, while stewing in my mess of doubt and guilt that I cannot save myself from, that only Christ can rescue me out of.
“But, God… is calling me to a place of real belief and amazing grace.
It scares me to death.”
I wish He would call me to that place. Maybe He is, and I’m too broken to hear His voice.
“We can be truly “saved” without being fully healed emotionally and spiritually.”
But the Christian subculture tells us that when you get saved, if that act doesn’t fully heal you, you’re on the road towards total healing AS LONG AS YOU DO EVERYTHING RIGHT AND JUMP THROUGH ALL THE HOOPS.
Of course, no one can do everything right nor jump thru all the hoops.
Which, in a sense, makes the church subculture out to be a lie…and opens the door wide open for one to consider what the gospel and the Christian life really is all about.
“We only will experience life and life more abundantly if we dare to stretch out our withered hands and hearts…”
And, I have to be willing to stretch out my hand and take a step. I am a participant in my own healing and growth.
- Philippians 1:6, New King James Version (on Bible Gateway)
Jesus is my hope, to overcome my mess, and garbage, and bitterness and pain and hurt and anger and brokenness. This verse tells me that
1. He has begun a good work in me
2. He is continuing that good work in me
3. He WILL complete that good work in the “day of Jesus Christ”.
I’m His. He is molding me into His image. It will happen, and I can’t derail His plan for my life.
Now all I have to do is accept that and roll with whatever He has in store for me.
Amen.