The Knowledge of the Holy

If you haven't read A. W. Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy", I would encourage you to do so as quickly as possible. In this book, Tozer walks through the attributes of God, which he defines as "Something true about God."

This book is thought provoking, and it could lead to some great discussion among friends about who God is and how we should think about Him.

Something else which lends itself to this book are the short chapters. Maybe you don't feel like reading super long chapters about God, but you think you could handle 3-4 pages at a time, then this is your book!

I highly recommend getting your hands on it, and thinking critically about its contents.

Prayer as Worship

One month ago today, my friend and I started a Wednesday night Bible Study called Midweek.

As we were dreaming about what it would look like, we both came to the table with some strong ideas and convictions. My friend was burdened by the lack of depth in Biblical teaching that is pervasive among so many of our churches. That conviction led to our mutual commitment that we would not sacrifice the depth of knowledge and wisdom in God's simply to enlarge our audience.

The conviction I brought to the table was the deficiency of prayer within the church. So many churches and Bible studies are known for their music or for their teacher, but rarely do you hear of a church that is known for its commitment to prayer. That conviction led us to the mutual commitment that we would be known for our depth of prayer.

We do not have music for worship. Instead, we lead the study in guided prayer for half an hour.

We work very hard to ensure that the prayer time is active and engaging. Everything we do is calculated and purposeful.

You see, I fear that the majority of church-goers don't really know how to pray, and I'm afraid the Church is largely responsible for this. How many times have you gone to church, and you listened to prayers, but you never once prayed? This happens quite frequently because churches have conditioned their congregations to be consumers rather than participators in prayer.

They come. They listen to the music. They listen to the message. They listen to the prayer. They go home.

But perhaps this doesn't account for everyone. Maybe there are those who participate in the prayer by praying silently. That's all well and good, but when they pray silently, who is receiving encouragement from them? Who benefits from knowing that other Christians are praying specifically for them?

Our main goal in their prayer time is to worship God through prayer. Our second highest goal is to create participators rather than consumers, and there are several ways we do this.

1) We have a moment of teaching about an aspect of prayer. There are so many different facets to prayer that are mentioned in the Bible, and many times, they are not explained to the church. So far, we have covered Supplication, Thanksgiving, and Intercession. The next few weeks hold some other interesting aspects of prayer.

2) We have a time of education about an unreached people group. I believe God has a heart for all nations, so we should be informed about all of them and praying for them.

3) I can shamelessly admit that I borrowed this one from the Passion Conferences. Some call it world prayer, others call it group prayer, whatever you want to call it, it works. We divide, the audience into groups of 3 and we ask them to number off. Then we have three prayer points, and we assign one point to each person. Then, we ask them each to pray out loud when it's their turn. Why do we do this? Two reasons: First, it forces them to engage in prayer. Nobody is allowed to sit idly. Everyone must participate. Second, it forces them to engage one another. Nobody gets to be an island. It promotes unity and solidarity. We have taken unengaged consumers and turned them into engaged participants.

4) Lastly, we give them the chance to pray for one another. They can use this time for prayer requests or simply getting to know one another. We have also worked to make this time creative. Last week, we introduced our entire group to the prayer wall. On this wall, they could write prayers of thanksgiving, intercession, supplication, and praise.

Some of you may be thinking that this sounds too extreme or too forceful. You might be thinking that these tactics will scare people away. However, our experience has been contrary to those assumptions. We are growing in numbers, and people are growing spiritually. People are getting closer to God and to one another.

Prayer as worship...it's been an amazing experiment.

sol·i·dar·i·ty

sol·i·dar·i·ty
 noun. unity or agreement of feeling or action, esp. among individuals with a common interest...

Yesterday, our college ministry moved into yet another space.

In the past 9 months, the college ministry at First Baptist Dallas has more than doubled in size. Our class grew so quickly that we moved from a small, unassuming room to a large hallway with two adjacent rooms we used for discussion. Our first week in that space, we had already outgrown it.

After significant growth in that space, we were again blessed with a new space. This time, we were blessed with a state of the art worship room - complete with all the gadgets and gizmos that make ministry fun. We were even blessed with a game room filled with couches, a ping pong table, a pool table, and all the other necessary games.

Finally, we were blessed with 9 additional break-out rooms where students are able to discuss/process the lesson with other students who are also striving to follow the Lord in their daily lives.

So, what brought us to this point? How did we more than double in size, and why are we continuing to grow?

One word: Solidarity.

We are currently studying the book of Philippians, and something that crops up frequently throughout that letter (as with most of the letters in the New Testament) is the call for unity, for solidarity.

"Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel," Philippians 1:27

Over and over again, the Bible encourages, even commands, that Christians strive for unity.

We are told that because we serve one Lord, and because we all share in the blessings of salvation and adoption that we should stand firm in one spirit with one mind. But it doesn't stop there. We are actually given a reason why we should be unified. That reason is the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ.

Let's process that...Christians are commanded to be unified, but even a cursory glance at the church (from inside and out) reveals that we are far from unified. Why? Is it because there are too many ideas out there for us to know which one is correct? Is it because there are too many voices teaching contrary principals? Is it because of pride, or selfishness, or ignorance?

All of those are possibilities, but I think the most fundamental reason is that we have neglected to hear and obey the word of God.

I believe the reason our college ministry has grown is directly correlated with our view of the gospel. These students have stood together with one mind and one spirit to achieve one common purpose, the advancement gospel of Christ.

When the people of God bond together to accomplish the work of God, then God shows up.

Solidarity.

It's Been Awhile

It has been 6 months since my last post. That's an embarrassing amount of time. I have decided to start back slowly. Also, a few friends have brought to my attention that my previous posts were way too long and esoteric. I'm going to work on shortening my posts and making them more enjoyable for a broader audience. Hopefully, I will post at least once a week. I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you, and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts with me. Alright....time to get started!

Streams of Thought

In the busyness of the new school year and starting new jobs, I have neglected my blog. This is something I regret. I've had many interesting thoughts I wanted to write down and discuss, but at this point, I simply want to introduce these thoughts to you, my readers. Eventually, I hope to discuss these thoughts in further detail. Any comments you have would be appreciated and helpful to further discussions. Most of these thoughts use some vague imagery and general terminology to point to something more specific. I will at least give a taste of where my mind is going with these thoughts.

My first thought is this, "The blind cannot see, but even those who have sight are counted blind when they close their eyes or they walk in darkness." What do I mean by that? Primarily, I am thinking about spiritual things when I say this. The blind refer to those who have not had their eyes opened to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course they cannot see. They cannot tell light from darkness. However, those who have sight (Christians) are still counted blind when they close their eyes to the truth of God's word, or when they choose to walk on paths where the light of God's glory will not illuminate their way. They will stumble. They will fall. And they will repeat this process until they begin walking in the light of God's truth once again.

Second, "People either Hate or Venerate that which they cannot comprehend." I think this comment applies to just about anything a person can imagine. The human mind is able to comprehend many things, but when we encounter something we are incapable of understanding, we must respond emphatically. Things or ideas we respond to in this way includes God, Love, the Universe, and various fields of Higher Education (Obviously not an exhaustive list). The question is, "Will we respond with hatred or veneration?" Throughout history, and even today, people respond to these things with either enormous respect or disdain. Notice I said that people respond to them. People can only respond or react after they have been acted upon. Knowledge, Creation, Love, and God all encroach upon humanity. They all make claims, and the greater the claim, the more emphatic the response. I think this is why people live and die over belief in God. He makes the greatest claim because He is before all things. A person cannot simply ignore God and a stalemate occurs. There is no such thing as unbelief in God. There is either Belief or Non-Belief (Which is itself a Belief). God exists. Refusing to believe in Him does not make him any less real. A person, who will never comprehend God, will either hate Him or venerate Him. Much more can be said, but for now, I will move forward to another topic.

The Final thought I want to convey is perhaps the most basic of the three. I initially used the word "Doctrine" in this thought, but I think it applies to all ideas in general. For the sake of allowing this statement make the broadest impact, I will use the term "Idea", but understand that I primarily want people to think of ideas and doctrines within the church when I make this statement, "Bad ideas flourish where Good ideas are absent". This sounds like a basic statement, but I think it also carries some profundity. Have you ever heard someone propound a thought so ignorant you wonder where it came from? Quite honestly, it comes from the absence of good ideas regarding whatever topic the person was addressing. When a person believes something separated from truth and reason, there has been a lack of good ideas presented to that person. Either that, or the person is blind like the person from my first thought. People who have either never had their eyes opened or who choose to close them to the truth are incapable discerning good ideas from bad ideas. It is not as if they don't have the right mind. They simply do not have the proper eyes for seeing the truth.

These are a few of my thoughts as of lately. Please feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, and opinions on these or any other topics you might choose. As always, thank you for reading and supporting!

Absolutely Relative

Some things do not make sense. Love doesn’t make sense. Pain doesn’t make sense, and simultaneously holding two conflicting viewpoints does not make sense. The technical term for simultaneously holding two conflicting viewpoints is known as Cognitive Dissonance. Everyone experiences this phenomenon from time to time, but few people enjoy living with the tension it creates. Most people seek to resolve the dissonance. However, when it comes to Relativism, or at least to defending Relativism, there is an inherent dissonance that cannot be resolved without seriously injuring the foundation for the case of Relativism. Let’s take a look at the problem.

Relativism, in its simplest terms, states that truth is not an absolute, but it is confined to individual perception and experience. This sounds like a smart way to think. After all, perceptions and experience should count for something…right? Following this line of thought, you start hearing people say things like “Nobody views the world exactly the same as I do, so if I see it differently, why should any other perspective be more correct than mine?” or “You see it your way. I’ll see it my way. And we can agree that both our views are equally valid.” These sound like intelligent statements, but they are not.

Before I continue, let me stamp out a brush fire. I am not referring to preferences. When speaking of preferences, the only valid opinion is the one based upon personal experience. If I think Bluebell vanilla ice-cream is the best ice-cream in the world and someone else thinks Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream is the best ice-cream in the world, I have no grounds by which to prove that person wrong. I may be able to build a good case for my favorite flavor and a good case against his, but at the end of the conversation we each have preferences based upon personal experiences, and neither preference is inferior to the other. In that sense, they are both correct. Now that we’ve brushed that concern aside, let’s deal with the larger issue…absolute truth.

It is impossible to effectively argue a case for Relativism. Why? Because the only legitimate means of arguing a case for Relativism requires an appeal to absolutes. Let’s follow this thought process, and remember we are talking about truth, not preference.

A few weeks ago, I met a man in London who was a retired Sikh priest. I told him I was a Christian, and he smiled and told me that is good. He told me we would meet in heaven because every religion leads to the same place. In short, he was reiterating the proverbial nonsense that “All roads lead to Rome.” This conversation got me thinking. His logic is flawed. What he was really saying is that he would not accept my religion and I would not accept his, so we were at an impasse. No one who truly believes his religion is correct can say to someone who holds a contradictory viewpoint that they are also correct. If all ideas are equally valid, they lose their validity. Now, I know very little of Sikhism, so it may be that his religion has left room for other religions to be correct also, but the claims of Christianity do not give that same courtesy to other religions. When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”, he didn’t leave any wiggle room. He made an absolute statement that appealed to an absolute truth, which demands an absolute verdict.

In order to remain faithful to their beliefs, Relativists must either say truth is relative or truth does not exist, but neither of these statements will hold much water. As we have seen truth cannot be relative, but is it possible that it does not exist? Were someone to tell me that truth does not exist, I would say, “Yes it does.” At that moment, he has already lost his argument. If he agrees with me, then of course he has lost his argument, but if he continues to disagree with me, he will start appealing to some sense of an absolute standard. He can’t say that my belief in truth is a preference. That would be nonsense. Either truth exists or it doesn’t. I say it exists. He says it doesn’t. I say he’s wrong. He says he’s right, and in doing so, he has just appealed to a sense of right and wrong. Those are absolutes. Absolutes only work if there is truth. It would be useless to say something is right or wrong if those terms did not carry any weight. Absolutes cannot be relative. Therefore, it is possible to be a relativist. You just can’t win an argument if you are one.

Let’s bring this to a more practical level. Most people will not engage you in a conversation about absolute truth. Usually, we hear people making Relativistic appeals in the political or moral arenas. For instance, on the issue of abortion, many people like to make the claim that it is the woman’s choice to do whatever she wants to with her body and nobody has the right to tell her differently. The barebones argument here is that morality is relative. What may be right for one person is not right for the other person. This perspective works, but only in the absence of a higher absolute law. If it really is wrong to abort a child, then it is someone else’s right to tell her that what she wants to do is wrong. This is one example among many, and even this one is not fully developed. The truth is, Relativism pervades our world. Any time you encounter it, at least take a moment to question whether the claims being made really have any validity. And remember, Relativism is Absolutely ridiculous!

Life and Death: An Observation

I am currently working on another long entry, but for now it occurred to me that I don't have to make every post epic. So I have decided to post little things that have been interesting thoughts to me. They may be neither interesting nor insightful, but hopefully they'll pique some curiosity.

Here's my interesting thought for today, "While Life and Death are polar opposites, Living and Dying are the same action."

No two entities could be more diametrically opposed than Life and Death. They have the same relationship as Good and Evil, Hot and Cold, and Light and Dark. However, Living and Dying are synonymous terms. Both words describe the process of moving from one end of existence to the other. The only distinction between these two words is their connotation. One says the glass is half empty. The other says the glass is half full. That really comes down to the matter. Doesn't it? Are you Living or are you Dying? The moment you were born, you began a trajectory toward the end of your existence on Planet Earth, but how is that existence playing out? It's worth thinking about. Are you living, or are you dying?