There are many reasons I love and support the mission of Josiah Venture and the great people like Kevin & Daniela Dickson and Jena Pospisil who work there. They introduce Jesus to a culture where over 80% of the population is atheist. The testimonies of these young people whose lives have been transformed by Jesus as a result of Josiah Venture's faithful service are inspiring.
Cautionary
What possessed Joe Schmoe to promote this man? Joe acknowledges that Jefferson ran his church like a CEO presiding over a corporation. He praises Jefferson’s doctrine while saying that his interpretation of Song of Songs was completely wrong. He acknowledges that Jefferson had become a wealthy man. Over the years Schmoe has had appropriately strong words for pastors who live and lead in those ways. Nevertheless he invited Jefferson to speak a number of times at his national conference. Many people trusted Jefferson precisely because Schmoe trusted Jefferson. At the very least this was a failure of discernment. And when a world-famous pastor with great influence lacks discernment the consequences are high.
The controversies surrounding Jeff Jefferson were not suddenly discovered six months ago. For years there have been numerous voices sounding an alarm. And now, mere weeks after Jefferson’s resignation from Harvest Church the whole enterprise is collapsing. I am not blaming Jefferson’s sins on the well-known men who surrounded him. I do wonder, however, why they chose to promote him so vigorously when there was so much evidence of trouble. (names changed)
~ Todd Pruitt
It really doesn't matter who the actual pastors are of whom Pruitt writes. I'm sure this kind of thing happens with distressing frequency in the lofty realms of celebrity Christendom. Most instances don't come to such well-publicized ends, and malefactors recede quietly into the green rooms of megachurches and conference centers until ready for reintroduction to a new mega-stage.
Of course many if not most pastors and church leaders with extraordinarily large followings are people of pure heart and sterling character. Most are true blessings to the church. Nevertheless, the dangers are real. If one's followers number in the thousands, it becomes ever more important to be discerning about who and what one endorses.
Stories like these are also words to the wise: just because a man can preach down the heavens, just because his words were used by God to effect positive change in your life, just because his personal charisma is potent enough to make him a local and internet sensation, are not reasons enough to give him your unquestioning devotion.
Jesus Tamed & Irrelevant
Jesus is tamed and made irrelevant in a terrible way when we cease to speak about his imminent expectation.
Jesus is rendered irrelevant when his preaching of judgment, which makes up a significant portion of the gospel tradition, is ignored and there is talk only of the loving and tender Jesus.
Jesus is tamed when there is no more preaching about his sharp words against the rich. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” Jesus said (Mark 10:25).
Jesus is tamed when it becomes taboo to speak of his celibacy. It was not accidental and not a matter of fate; it is connected with his absolute devotion to the people of God….
Jesus is also tamed when we sharply criticize the treatment of divorced and remarried persons by Rome and yet keep silent about the altogether clear and thoroughly well-attested words of Jesus against divorce. …
Above all, Jesus is tamed and rendered irrelevant when he is presented only as a sympathetic rabbi, a prophet mighty in word and deed, or a gifted charismatic—or as the first feminist, a radical social revolutionary, a gregarious social worker. All that conceals his true claim. In all these categories Jesus is shrunken, distorted, twisted into shape, planed smooth, disempowered, and accommodated to our secret desires.
~ Gerhard Lohfink, No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today
Quotable
“No one has ever been hurt by THE church. Many people have been hurt by A church. And the difference matters.
The difficulty, of course, is that we see particular churches (“the church particular”) with all their faults, rather than the underlying spiritual reality which is, as C.S. Lewis said “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.” Worse, we are drawn to the negative examples. We see the abusive pastor and miss the thousand authentic ones standing behind him or her. We mentally mark the hurtful churches and forget about all the healing ones.”
File under "Things You Want to be True"
Have you ever wondered what became of the "Woman at the well" (Jn 4:5-32)? Church tradition gives her a heart-warming name and history that I want to be true.
Orthodoxwiki has the story: "Photine"
Disciplines
From Dwell: Life with God for the World, by Barry D. Jones (via Scot McKnight):
Whether we live in a remote monastery, the heart of a large city or anywhere in between, we need a set of practices and patterns for living—a rule of life—
1. That will shape and sustain our life with God for the world.
2. We need practices that nurture our souls and enable us to increasingly inhabit the vision of God in the places where we dwell to live into the story of the Bible, the story of God’s personal presence, just reign and perfect peace.
3. These will be practices that demand things of us. They will require our disciplined attention and engagement.
4. These will be practices that connect us to one another. They will help us live life together as a contrast community, against the world for the sake of the world.
5. These practices will connect us to a tradition. They will have a rich heritage from the Christian past, having shaped and sustained the people of God for a long time.
6. Finally, these will be practices that orient us toward the future. They will help us inhabit the vision of God in the particular places where we dwell.
To the extent we Jesus-followers actually discipline ourselves to spiritual practices (and anecdotally it seems we are much more committed to them in word than in deed), we usually focus almost exclusively on #2 of the list. Point #2 is important. In pursuit of keeping up with our fast-paced lives we struggle particularly with #3.
What would it look like to live a vital life in Christ "for the world" (#1)? What kind of practices would encompass the points above?
Quotable
“I miss the days when I was dogmatically and doctrinally right and most of you were wrong. Life was much simpler when all my thinking had been done for me five hundred years ago…”
Quotable
“How much better to be a grain of dirt on that kind prophet’s hands than a stone in the cold, accusing Temple of the pure.”
Quotable
“Does our apparently limitless fascination with images of ourselves and those we love and like, act as a way of self-validation and affirmation? We create a carefully constructed profile on Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever. We project an idealised image of ourselves to the world. From a Christian perspective, self-worth, identity, purpose and meaning are found outside ourselves; not in a partially real imagined self, but, as Paul would put it, ‘in Christ’. There is no need (or ability) to pretend with God – he knows our true selves, and gives himself in sacrificial love precisely because he knows what we are really like – sinners in need of his grace and forgiveness.”
Quotable
More Lewis.
“Nonsense is still nonsense even when we talk it about God.”
