Archive for September, 2007

Vintage Jesus

by Hugh on September 28, 2007 in Books, Faith with No comments

Recently I’ve been listening to ‘Vintage Jesus’, a series of 12 sermons preached by Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill. It’s answers to 12 questions about Jesus, like; why did Jesus come? why did his mum need to be a virgin? why worship him? what will Jesus do when he returns?

There are two extras which I also like, each sermon starts with an interview with someone talking about Jesus, usually a crazy guy who smoked too much weed, ranting about something… also each week Pastor Mark wears a t-shirt about Jesus, usually it’s kindof irreverent, but shows how Jesus is very much part of pop culture.

Anyway.. it’s going to be coming out as a book (click pic for website) written with another guy called Gerry Breshears, it’s published on the 11th Feb 2008. Look out, there should be a few Driscoll books coming out next year.

Aslan on the move

by Hugh on September 27, 2007 in Faith with No comments

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.”

Jesus Christ is alive and well. He rules and reigns over all things and all people. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He died in the place of sinners like you and me, he took the punishment of God that should have been ours. Now he calls us to repent and follow him…

Why? Because man is destined to die once and then face judgement… Jesus isn’t a hippie, he’s not gay, he’s not a revolutionary, he’s not a guru… Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he will come to judge the earth and make war. He is the Word of God, Faithful and True. There’s two ways to live, either you can let Jesus pay for your sins on the cross and receive the free gift of eternal life, or you can pay for your sins yourself, the wages of which is death!

Confessions of a Reformission Rev.

by Hugh on September 25, 2007 in Books, Faith with No comments

Read this book while on the train to Budapest… this book is the story of Mars Hill church in Seattle, along with some insights into various aspects of missiology and ecclesiology from Driscoll along the way.

The Criticisms

The two main criticisms I’ve heard about this book, and Driscoll’s ministry are; 1) the chapters are all based around the size of the church, 2) there’s lots of inappropriate things that Driscoll has done that he refers to.

Having read the book I think these are flawed criticisms – first, the book is about the growth of the church, and a vision for more growth, having targets is healthy for mission and focus, in one of his sermons Driscoll says about his church “Is it all about numbers? Well yeh it is because numbers are people and we want to serve as many people as God gives us.” Second, the book is called Confessions not everything here is presented as the right way to do things and Driscoll often talks about the times he has come to repent of his mistakes in ministry.

Key Points

Mission – Driscoll starts off with some of the themes of ‘Radical Reformission’, in all of the decisions he takes in Mars Hill he always makes sure that the focus is kept on the church mission – to reach Seattle with the gospel. Sometimes he has to “put dogs down” when there are people getting in the way of this mission.

Change – when a church grows from 50-4000 in less than 10 years there’s inevitably going to be some radical changes taking place. It’s interesting to hear about Driscoll’s personal change, distancing himself from the liberal Emergent movement and embracing Reformed theology, and how through preaching through Romans the church established this position. Driscoll makes some controversial, sometimes unpopular decisions, but is always looking to keep the church vision focused and ready to grow.

Management – a lot of what Driscoll does seems very experimental, but is always done under the authority of Scripture and the council of other pastors. Firstly, I like the basis of leadership, where rather than recruiting external leaders, that new leaders are raised up and trained within the church, and the idea of hiring staff slowly and firing quickly. And there’s lots of good thoughts about being a pastor, leading a church, leading an eldership team and managing staff, members, change and growth.

Questions – it’s not really a study guide, but at the end of each chapter Driscoll asks the readers some questions about their churches and their attitudes. Driscoll is on a mission and is constantly questioning why we do things, Driscoll brings us back to the Bible for the answers…

Overall…

You have to remember that this book is the story of a specific church in a specific place. And also that it’s a book of confessions… not everything is said and done is ‘good’. But, Driscoll’s passion for evangelism, for leading and building a church is worth the read alone, his thoughts on how to lead/pastor the church may seem a bit strange sometimes, but I love them, because he always goes back to the gospel mission and what the Bible says as his lead and guide.

As I understand the book is now out of date, the church has grown even more and has started multi-site services, with preaching streamed by satellite. Driscoll ends the book with a vision and strategy to see a church of 20,000, I suspect an updated edition will not be too far away!

As ever, it’s an easy read, full of humour and sarcasm, couldn’t put it down. Other reviews of the book can be found at… Reformissionary, Tim Challies, thebluefish

Gonna read about the ‘Cambridge Seven’ now…

Danube Capitals

by Hugh on September 22, 2007 in Life with No comments

So I just came back from 10 days travelling around the Danube Capitals – Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. Along with my good chums Reg and Loz… see photos on Facebook.

Prague

Arrived in Prague to find the main square filled with a sea of Irish football fans, they lost. There are 3 main Czech beers; Pilsner Urquell, Budweiser and Staropramen (we went to the brewery in Prague). Pilsner Urquell is the best and wonderfully is exported to the UK.

Prague castle and the Cathedral within it’s walls is the best sight, it’s amazing. It looks even better at night from across the bridge. Unfortunately our old pubs tour guide never turned up, which was sad. We went to the Communism museum to learn about the history of Communism in Czechoslovakia.

Budapest

Beautiful. Loads of grand buildings, palaces, churches, basilica, squares… we stayed right in the heart of the diplomatic quarter, between the British embassy and the parliament. Was more expensive than I expected, but really nice. Drank alot of Krusovice (which is a Czech beer as well). There’s a really cool park with loads of ex-communist statues just outside the city, didn’t make it there sadly.

Bratislava

Everything worth seeing here is contained within about 1mile square. Churches and towers and loads of little pubs/cafes. We drank 60p pints here of Zlaty Bazant, and also had some really pricy Pina Coladas. Smoked some Cubans… Got a boat to Vienna…

Vienna

It was nice, but just full of museums, and theatres and galleries and generally places of ‘culture’, beer and food was most expensive yet, but we did find the best pub ever… if you go to Vienna you must visit ‘7 Stern Brau‘ they have loads of beautiful home-made brews served in 1l jugs.

and in summary…

always take a pack of cards travelling to play Wist with… photos on Facebook!

Unconditional Election

by Hugh on September 1, 2007 in Faith with No comments

Yet again we come to one of those posts which has been sitting unfinished for some time – remember the thought of blogging through TULIP, well I made it to T! But I thought it was important to keep going, to ponder my understanding of these points. Anyway… I was thinking that Unconditional Election isn’t really much different to Total Depravity, it’s just the next step…

Why Election?

Universalism isn’t Christian, it’s a heresy – Driscoll mocks it referring to it as “Justification by death”, you get your ticket to heaven when you die. Jesus says there’s a heaven and a hell, and everyone is going to spend eternity in one of these places. Since God is sovereign, then at the very least he has foreknowledge of ‘who goes where’. But Election is more than this, God as sovereign wills and purposes all things to his glory, including salvation. God chooses (elects) those who will come to faith, and by the same logic, the same truth, God also chooses people who will not be saved.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory… Romans 9: 22-23 ESV

We see two groups here in Romans 9, “vessels of wrath” and “vessels of mercy”. Both groups have been chosen, elected – to say “prepared beforehand” is to choose in advance, to… predestine?? Both groups have been dealt with by God, one with “wrath”, and one with “mercy” to show his power and glory. Wrath is God’s righteous anger and judgement upon sin that all of mankind deserve. Mercy is not for everyone, it’s not universal, although the fact that God has “endured with much patience” is a sign of common grace, of some mercy shown to all. Mercy is undeserved, it’s unconditional because it’s a free gift from God.

That’s my reasoning of Romans 9 – if we don’t accept that then we have to seriously consider what election is? who are the elect? what does it mean to be predestined? The Bible tells us that God elects and predestines, that seems to be what Romans 9 tries to explain…

Why Unconditional?

The mercy shown in Romans 9 is unconditional. Ephesians 2 showed that we’re dead and unable to get to God. So if this is true then our ‘eternal destiny’ cannot be in our hands, we’re dead! We can’t do anything. Romans 8 makes it clear that it’s all God – he forknew, he predestined, he called, he justified, he glorified – we didn’t contribute or by our actions cause any of these things, they were all the free gift of God. It was by grace we were saved, not works.

As I understand, an Arminian position would say that, God in his foreknowledge chooses to save (elects) people based on their response to the gospel – conditional election. Other less acceptable positions might say that God doesn’t have foreknowledge and salvation is unknown until the Day, realistically this is probably going to lead to universalism – everyone is elected, or at least saved in the end.

Conditional election may at first glance be easier to swallow, but it has two major flaws: first the focus is taken away from God and shifted to us, but this is not right, Ephesians 2:8 says that even our faith is a gift of God’s grace. Secondly there is the problem of children who die young, tribes who never hear the gospel, the mentally incapable (is that PC? anyway you know what I mean). If election is conditional on the choice of the individual, then that automatically condemns the above who for one reason or another are unable to hear/understand/respond to the gospel. So in fact, believing in a God who chooses unconditionally, in my mind is much easier to accept!

The Next Step…

At the start I said I thought this was simply the next logical step, following on from Total Depravity. TD says that we are corrupted in every area and incapable of approaching and responding to God. Unconditional Election affirms our state of total helplessness – there is nothing we can do to merit salvation, nothing that might persuade God that we’re not that bad – it’s the story of the God who in his mercy saves people like you and me, who without him are lost, hopeless and helpless.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure – Psalm 40: 2