Consistency and the Church

I heard Mark Dever read this quote with Kevin DeYoung out of his book Why We Love the Church.

Consistency is not a postmodern virtue. And nowhere is this more aptly displayed than in the barrage of criticisms leveled against the church.

• The church-is-lame crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love.
• They bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex resource-hungry things the church should be doing.
• They don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, , but then hate it when it has poor leadership.
• They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee ship with other well-educated thirtysomethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets.
• They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is “inbred.”
• They want the church to know that its reputation with the outsiders is terrible, but then are critical they the church is too concerned with appearances.
• They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political.
• They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them.
• They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences.
• They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think.
• They want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members.
• They want to be connected with history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week.
• They call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.”

How to Make a Successful Pastor

While I was in chapel today Matt Chandler quoted the following from Eugene Peterson.

For a long time, I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation. The curriculum would consist of four courses.

Course I: Creative Plagiarism. I would put you in touch with a wide range of excellent and inspirational talks, show you how to alter them just enough to obscure their origins, and get you a reputation for wit and wisdom.

Course II: Voice Control for Prayer and Counseling. We would develop your own distinct style of Holy Joe intonation, acquiring the skill in resonance and modulation that conveys and unmistakable aura of sanctity.

Course III: Efficient Office Management. There is nothing that parishioners admire more in their pastors than the capacity to run a tight ship administratively. If we return all phone calls within twenty-four hours, answer all the letters within a week, distributing enough carbons to key people so that they know we are on top of things, and have just the right amount of clutter on our desk—not too much, or we appear inefficient, not too little or we appear underemployed—we quickly get the reputation for efficiency that is far more important than anything that we actually do.

Course IV: Image Projection. Here we would master the half-dozen well-known and easily implemented devices that that create the impression that we are terrifically busy and widely sought after for counsel by influential people in the community. A one-week refresher course each year would introduce new phrases that would convince our parishioners that we are bold innovators on the cutting edge of the megatrends and at the same time solidly rooted in all the traditional values of our sainted ancestors.

(I have been laughing for several years over this trade school training with which I plan to make my fortune. Recently, though, the joke has backfired on me. I keep seeing advertisements for institutes and workshops all over the country that invite pastors to sign up for this exact curriculum. The advertised course offerings are not quite as honestly labeled as mine, but the content appears to be identical—a curriculum that trains pastors to satisfy the current consumer tastes in religion. I’m not laughing anymore.)

HT:  Justin Taylor

Suffering: Saved from it, or Stomaching it

While studying through Hebrews I ran across an old Piper sermon that discusses suffering.  Hebrews 11 speaks of those who had faith.  Some were saved from suffering, others had to stomach it.  Here are the verses.

33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; [note shift] and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

Piper has four points about this shift:

1. Through our faith God can and does work miracles and acts of providence to bring practical earthly help and deliverance to his people.
2. God does not always work miracles and acts of providence for our deliverance from suffering; sometimes by faith God sustains his people through sufferings.
3. Having faith is not the ultimate determining factor in whether you suffer or escape, God is – God’s sovereign will and wisdom and love.
4. The common feature of the faith that escapes suffering and the faith that endures suffering is this: both of them involve believing that God himself is better than what life can give to you now, and better than what death can take from you later.