In this email, my friend went on to talk about families that come to our church from other churches that may or may not be reformed in their thinking. This person went on to clarify their position as it relates to families and even more specifically fathers…

In responding to his question, I acknowledged no fundamental difference between live-birth and adoption-based families; they should all be raised for the glory of God! However, I continued with this in my answer:

“I think what I clung to in the Bayly boys blog is an attitude of theological elitism. What I’m getting at is that I see the reformed church (in very general terms) lacking in gospel ministry to the world and being more excited about the reformation of already-Christians instead of the salvation of yet-to-be Christians.
I also see the reformed church (again, in very general terms) more concerned in one era/style of worship and in general looking at those from the non-reformed community as coming from churches “that don’t get it” or “haven’t arrived yet.” A gross generalization, but it’s a recurring theme.”

The majority of our emails contained specific dialogue about our specific local congregation, so I’ll spare you the boring details. However, at another point, this exchange did allow me the opportunity to clarify even further what I felt was at the heart of both the Bayly Brother’s blog and my first post. Here is how I responded:

“Any Church USA” falls short when they preach a gospel that is based on external items rather than the cross of Jesus Christ. I call it “lifestyle evangelism.” When someone either notices you as an individual or…sees your family and inquires in a positive way about why you are “different” than other people of faith. Within a few sentences, we should be able to turn that conversation to the cross of Jesus Christ.
With “lifestyle evangelism” the discussion goes to what we’ve done (our marriage, our family, our homeschooling, our dress, our behavior, and the list goes on). I think we would both challenge any efforts to evangelize others to “look/act/dress/behave like me” rather than “look/act/dress/behave like Christ.”
How about Jesus? I believe He entered every area of culture. He addressed sin. He gave people hope. He gave them Himself. He addressed the religious elite regularly and accused them with sharp words of adding to the gospel of grace. Jesus came to save individual believers. He came to take away their sins and reconcile them to God. He did not come to make better families or create stronger fathers…If someone different looking/acting walked into our conservative church (i.e. red hair/tattoos), I think Jesus would accept them where they were. He’d allow the HS to address their sin and He would offer them hope.

In one of my final email responses, I went on to further clarify what I was trying to say by writing this to my friend:

“I hope we can agree that we need to minister to all, learn to relate to all, accept others right where they are and share the gospel of salvation…dwell on the core and not the peripheral…show them love…pretend that all we have to give others is Jesus and then give them Jesus! I hope we can encourage folks to love Jesus, to serve Jesus and to honor Jesus! I know we can agree that it is all about Jesus.”

Hopefully my responses in this email diaglogue will clarify what resonated with me in the Bayly Brother’s blog. I found that taking part in this email correspondence was helpful and I wish it had worked itself out in the comments section for more of you to participate. Hopefully, you can join in on the discussion now that I have included them here.

Lastly, I hope by now that most loyal readers of theMangoTimes would know that when I say “it’s all about Jesus” that I’m not negating doctrine, theology or obedience to God in His Word. I hope you would know that when I say “Give them Jesus,” I mean that phrase to be synonymous with “Give them the Gospel (alone!)” and “Tell them about the mercy of God (alone!)” and “Tell others what Jesus has done for them (alone!)”. Instead of first welcoming folks into a “graduate” level of church, let’s welcome them into loving Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for them!

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

For a while now, I’ve been talking about life from within the “Reformed camp.” You see, after years of enjoying and feasting upon great God-centered doctrine, I’ve found myself stopping to take a look around. Face it, I don’t care where you fall within the greater camp of Christianity, from high-church, to contemporary, to charismatic, to traditional…every one has weaknesses. Likewise, the Reformed tradition has blind spots and sometimes it serves us well to push our pride aside and look at our warts. Whether it’s a disconnect from the marching orders given by Christ in the great commission or an arrogant snub to anything that might look or smell like contemporary Christian life (worship, discipleship, evangelism), I continue to reflect upon the tendency for the neo-Reformed folk to be an inward-focused and self-congratulatory bunch.

At the same time, if you are a friend of mine, you’ve heard me work through an idea that I’ve termed the “graduate church.” I am referring to the effort made by many within Reformed congregations to present the Christian faith at an elevated cerebral level. In other words, Christ is understood, discussed, practiced, debated and worshipped at the “head level.” What’s missing is that “heart level” understanding of Jesus Christ. Through our own personal reformations to deeper understanding of the faith (or as I’ve heard it said, “when I finally arrived at a right understanding of God”), we lose the ability to understand, discuss, debate, and worship Christ at the “heart level.” Long gone are discussions about a deep abiding love for Jesus and we dig our heels in as our worship even approaches anything emotional. Unfortunately, many new-comers to these congregations can get lost in translation, and these “graduate churches” are forced to grow not because of “new-believers,” but they add to their membership with “already-believers.”

Like I said at the beginning, this is one of those times when someone else has said it better…much better. I found the Bayly Brothers talking about “graduate church” too, but they’ll probably get away with it. I’ll just sit back and point my fingers over towards them and say “Yeah, what they said…” Click on their picture or FOLLOW THIS LINK to the Bayly Brothers blog and read what they have said about this topic…and then come back here and drop a comment if you want.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

He’s a perceptive guy and likes to call it like he sees it. This morning he had this to say on his blog (Equipping the Saints):

“Throughout Scripture we find that those weighed down by sin are shown overwhelming grace while the self-righteous and unremorseful sinful brethren are forcefully rebuked. Yet in our churches it is not uncommon to see sinners rejected (after all they might corrupt us and our children) and self-righteousness celebrated – is it possible that we’ve gotten things backwards?”
Pastor Dirk Russell

Love it Dirk! You could be a guest editor for theMangoTimes with straight-forward words like those, keep up the good work!

Quietly making noise,
Fletch

Merry Christmas from theMangoTimes!

May the truth of His Advent change your life this year!

Since it is so easy for us to become focused on ourselves and what we do (and by extension, how we do it), I love it when someone reminds me of what Christ has done! Last summer, I posted about lifestyle evangelism and one of my points was that believers should never grow weary of hearing the gospel preached. It needs to be preached regularly and faithfully, so that we can know it and then go and repeat it.

Here is John Piper and the Gospel in 6 minutes. Used by permission from Desiring God Ministries.

Quietly making noise,
Fletch