the.sip.from.the.hydrant

i’ve been trying to figure out what really penetrated my heart from the conference i went to called advance09. i’ve been waiting for the information dust to settle down and see what lands on my heart.  this huge stream was being sprayed at my face and i’m just realizing how much i actually got to drink. 

i knew that my teaching among the students would really reveal what it was that took hold of me and low and behold, i immediately found out today what it was.  

i am on a mission to glorify the name of God and his son, Jesus.  my mission is not only to glorify him with my life, but to help everyone around me find their true purpose in life, by showing them that it is what they’re meant to do as well.  every thing we do as christians revolves around the person of Christ.  we focus on glorifying Christ and the rest follows. discipleship follows, good works follow, singing follows, etc.  all these things are the result of our desire to worship and honor Christ with abandon.

the things i’m wrestling with now and i guess i have been for a while is the question, “what do i need to abandon to glorify him more fully?” i have to sift through my life and know what my idols are that steal his worship and then i have to figure out what it means to crush those idols.

advance09.day.three

today was quite possibly the pinnacle of advance09, due to john piper’s closing sermon. i’ll share what he said in a moment. first, we’ll skim over what danny akin says are the 9 signs of a healthy community of faith.  all his points came from hebrews 13 which is built on top of hebrews 1-12 as the evidences and ethics of our faith in Christ, the supreme.

1. actively loving each other
2. care for those who are in need
3. honoring the divine institution of marriage and family
4. unshakeable faith in the providence of God
5. respect of those those who teach and shepherd in the word
6. never moves from Christ-centered doctrine
7. characterized by offerings of praise, thanksgiving and service
8. develops a ministry of prayer for its leaders
9. looks to Jesus as the Great Shepherd who will do good works through them.

badabing badaboom.  that’s all he spoke.

john piper finished the entire conference with his second part of his teaching, “let the nations be glad.” it was a serious challenge to the room filled with 2800 ministers of the gospel. the first thing he discussed was what the motive behind missions is.

he began with a quote from john stott saying, “the highest motive for missions is zeal for the glory of Christ.  to be jealous for the honor of his name…anxious all the time that it should be given the honor and glory that it is due.”  he talked of how missions exists because the worship of God doesn’t.  he said that worship is the fuel and goal of missions.

john p. then addressed a tough issue, that God is radically and passionately committed to the glory of His own name.  God is God-centered.  God’s pursuit of his own glory is plastered throughout the pages of Scripture.  john p. begins to read passage after passage, “for my glory… for his glory… for his namesake… for the sake of my holy name… glorify your name… i have glorified it and will glorify it again.”  this fact bothers many people.

john p. proceeds to give three responses that say Christ’s passion for Christ’s glory and God’s passion for His glory is not ego-mania but ultimate love.

1. the apex of his passion to display his own glory was the cross and his own self sacrifice, that we might not make much of ourselves but recognize his grace and sacrifice.  his grace is glorious.
2. it is through glorifying himself that he brings us unto our ultimate delight, exalting the one thing for which we were made, his own glory.
3. the story of lazarus, martha and mary forms his third point.  because jesus arrived when lazarus was still sick and the scripture states that Jesus said that he loved him, therefore he stayed for two days, and waited for him to die for the purpose of glorifying God.  john p. points out that the clear point of this scripture showed us that through Jesus love he was saying that it is better to see the glory of God than to live.

so the motive behind missions is the glory of God that he may be worshipped by the nations.

john p. moves on to his next point which is the how.  he makes sure that we know the how is not by praying and praying and praying but that the scripture makes it clear that it is by preaching and preaching and preaching. it is the work of missions.  how can they believe if they don’t hear, or hear if noone tells them, and how can someone tell them if they are not sent?

BUT prayer is the summons of almighty power into the word that we preach. it is tapping into the power that bears the sword of the  word. the preacher that bears the sword without pray is powerless (read eph. 6, where prayer is directly connected to the armor of God). he goes on to spit a rhyme, ” you can’t know what prayer is for until you understand that life is war.”  he said that we have turned prayer from a war-time walky talky into a domestic intercom, asking for things when our tummy hurts or when we’re thirsty. and when we begin to use it that way it malfunctions.

he ends by saying that this cause will cost us our lives, everything we are.  we are guaranteed suffering and he gives 7 reasons why we will:

1. Jesus suffered and said we would too
2. paul said there is no other way home (acts 14, look it up lazy-lima-bean)
3. peter said it’s the normal path of blessing (i pet. 4.12)
4. paul said it is the normal cost of discipleship
5. in suffering he is refining our faith
6. his grace and power are shown through our weakness
7. it is through joy in suffering that people recognize us as the salt and light of the world.

i greatly appreciated the opportunity given to me to go to this conference.  i had a fun time with erik, jason, and mark k. though it got a little raunchy at times.  it was extremely enjoyable. and now as the dust of information settles we shall see how God changes me and my friends.

thanks for taking the time to read this.  if you were particularly interested in any of the notes that i typed up here you can listen to the sermon yourself by visiting http://advancethechurch.com and digging around a little. i personally recommend listening to both mark driscoll’s talks. he is not only hilarious but a serious vessel of truth and conviction.

advance09.day.two

today started off awesomely @ mcd’s with a sausage biscuit and a coke. we got to advance09 and started singing some.

after we sang ed stetzer took the stage and spoke about the kingdom of God and the church. he pointed out that Jesus only mentions the church twice, while he uses the phrase kingdom of heaven a plethera of time. he said that the kingdom of God has faded away in our churches because of two things: dispensationalism and liberalism. the former says the kingdom comes later and the latter says we display the kingdom of heaven through social justice, but forget Jesus in the process of being kind.

he focused on matthew 13.16-20 where Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ and Jesus talks of how he will build his church.  we have to gain more focus on the kingdom:

1. we need to recognize the centrality of Jesus.  he should be the driving factor of the things we do and our messages should be about him ALL THE TIME.
2. peter’s confession is the foundation of Christ’s church.  the authority of Christ gives is to the church and not just to Peter.
3. the church is God’s tool of the kingdom mission

Stetzer said that people get enough religion to inoculate themselves, so they don’t catch the real thing.  we have a lot of religion and not a lot of Jesus. we have the keys to the kingdom of heaven. let us open the doors.

he said going to a conference like this is similar to ministry pornography, because we see an unrealistic and fantastical vision of something we’ll never experience, so we need to stop trying to be cool and big and start trying to give our churches a vision of Christ and the advance of His kingdom.

JD Greear went next and spoke about revitalizing churches that are steadily declining in membership or passion. he said the reason they start to die is because people get religious, just like the pharisees, so he went to matthew 23 and talked about the six things that are signs of a religious and dying church (remember, religion is when people work to please God). here they are:

1. religious people love recognition, praise and self-glory
2. religious people substitute ritual for the love of God (using morality to try to keep God off their back)
3. secondary things take centrality over knowing God (tradition, music, length of sermon, etc.)
4. elevate religious ritual over love for people
5. more aware of the sins of others than their own sin
6. religious people think we’re always talking about someone else

the most powerful thing JD said was there are no good people and bad people.  there are only sinners and Jesus.

eric mason took the stage next and i didn’t pay attention to a lot of what he said because i was spending time looking up his name on google because i recognized his voice from an old hip hop group.  he was part of cross movement.  the basic gist of his lecture was the main problem in the church was  credibility problem and that the establishment of credibility comes through the faith of the church being grounded and seeking the glory of God, and the prayers of the church becoming Gospel centered.

he made a good point that the subtlety of false humility in our prayers can bring more glory to us than God, because our prayer becomes about how bad we are and never about how good God is.

the heaviest sermon of the day came from mark driscoll who talked about ministry idolatry. he started by saying that we all worship something as human beings.  we’re built to be worshippers.  some of us just worship cars, money, power, respect, etc.

idols lie to us in four ways:

1. presenting themselves as Savior (i.e. money saves me , my hell is being broke and my heaven is being able to buy what i want)
2. telling you it can mediate between you and God (pastors often serve as idols, and so does music styles, i.e. i can’t worship God by singing hymns)
3. becoming your identity (leadership, status. altering your identity destroys your idols, thereby destroying your life)
4. brings you righteousness (morality, tithing, attendance, etc.)

we can tell what we hold as idols by asking ourselves, “what do i treasure? what am i most fearful of losing? what do i sacrifice for?”

he quoted someone saying, “sin is a worship disorder, we worship our way into it and we have to worship our way out of it.”

common idolatries: money, family, sexuality, substance, morality, and people.

11 questions to ask if we are idolaters in our ministries:

1. does your joy change when attendance is down? (attendance idolatry)
2. do you feel God needs you and uses you because of your skill? (gift idolatry)
3. are you better than other people because you know more than them? (truth idolatry)
4. is success your evidence that God loves you? (fruit idolatry)
5. what do you hold onto that holds the gospel back? (tradition idolatry)
6. do you worship your methods as mediator? (method idolatry)
7. are you motivated by God’s glory or your title? (office idolatry)
8. is winning what motivates you at the deepest level? (success idolatry)
9. do you use the pressure of ministry to make you walk with God? (ministry idolatry)
10. does your ministry need to be unique? (innovative idolatry)
11. who, other than Christ, are you imaging? (leader idolatry)

driscoll finished by saying two intense things to us. repentance should not be what we preach, but what we do.  and that anyone who doesn’t repent is a heretic.

john piper spoke next and his humility seemed like it crushed the room.  he moves over for God and it is evident. he talked about the church being missional around the globe.  he talked about how our hearts were made to embrace living with a mission, saying that a soul shrinks to the level of its concerns.

he said the biblical task of missions isn’t to make sure everyone on the planet gets saved, but that cultural barriers are broken and bridges are built until every people group has a strong church that reaches the people around it. missions are the fulfillment and extension of the abrahamic covenant that says all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him, and ultimately through the seed that is Jesus Christ (romans 4).

three questions are essential to ask to give us a sense of urgency when it comes to living missionally:

1. are people perishing? yes, hell exists and it is a terrible place where people will suffer, consciously, forever. the horror of hell goes on and on.
2. is Christ’s work on the cross necessary to save? yes, there are no different ways to God.  the only way to be saved is to accept that Jesus made a way to God on the cross and by His resurrection. there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus.
3. do people have to hear about it and believe it to be saved? yes, this does not mean people who have never heard about will be judged and condemned at the last judgement if they’ve never heard. but how can people believe in what they have not heard and how can they hear if no one preaches to them and how can someone preach to them if no one is sent?

we must become missional in the church and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for reading if you read the entire thing.  tomorrow will be shorter, for there are only two sessions.

advance09.day.one

advance09 is a conference about advancing the church by means of the Gospel.  i got here today with mark k., erik s., and jason l. at about 9.45am.  we had a lot of time to kill so we walked to a mcd’s and ate lunch because the schedule for the day is long.  we sat down @ about 12.20-6.15pm and listened to four people give hour long lectures and also sang some songs to God.

the first person to speak was mark driscoll. he basically spent time defining what the church is.  he talked about how we need to do that b/c technolog and culture has completely changed the face of churches in many ways, whether its through multi-site churches, or internet churches.  he said this is what makes a church:

1. regenerated church membership
2. leadership
3. gathering
4. unified in the spirit (not meaning we have to agree on everything)
5. sacraments practiced
6. church discipline
7. obey great commandments to love
8. obey great commission

other points he made were that the church should gather together AND scatter to minister to people outside the church.  the church should be attractive AND missional. and that if these are unbalanced the church will be unhealthy.

he also said the pastor is the missiologist and the people are the missionaries.

FUNNY MOMENT: he said that churches should think about stopping sunday school.  this is what ensues after a audience member reacts to this idea.

crowd member: “WHAT?”

driscoll: “the baptist guy says, ‘what’! i’m sure the seven members in your church love sunday school.”

ANOTHER FUNNY MOMENT: he said that people in a cult think they’re part of a church until the last day.

the second person who spoke was a pastor named tyler jones from vintage 21.  he spoke about the decline of the church and what it will take for a resurgence.  he pointed out that the scripture said the church is a body. he proceeded to point out how americans treat their bodies (unhealthily) and said we treat the body of the church the same way.

the reasons he gave for the decline of the church are as follows:

1. we’ve put a debilitating focus on political alignment
2. not passing down faith to our children and young people
3. failure of christian education.  people can study and speak about scripture, but don’t know how to pastor
4. fighting over doctrinal issues between denominations
5. less resources

he also said that we had three primary problems:

1. we’ve taken our eyes off of Jesus and lost our first love
2. we’ve taken our eyes off of the mission
3. we’ve allowed the church to become toxic

he said that the answer to the decline of the church and these problems is LONG-TERM ACTIVE REPENTANCE. not our normal everyday pansy momentary passive repentance that isn’t true, but repenting for the long haul and actively turning away from these sins and working with the whole Holy Spirit to fix these problems.

a dude named dr. brian chapell spoke next.  he said that the only reason sin has power in our life is because we love it.  only a love that surpasses our love for sin will fizzle out the power of that sin.  this is why the greatest commandment is that we love God.  and we love God because he first loved us.  that’s why when we preach the people should know that God cherishes and loves them, because it is only when we know that that we can love God back.  our goal as pastors should be to help people love Christ more after we speak.

he also said that the entire scripture is about Christ.  that it is either predicting Christ, preparing us for Christ, reflecting on Christ, or the result of Christ.  He talked about how we have judges, kings, and prophets that were terrible to point us to the perfect judge, king, and prophet who is Jesus. he said, “the bible takes care to tar every biblical character except for one.”

lastly, matt chandler spoke.  he’s funny to watch and listen to because when he gets passionate he gets flamboyantly feminine, jk. not really. actually it is the truth.  he talked about the de-churched (people who leave the church).  he basically pointed out that it is common for people to lose their first love, even people who are still involved in church.

he went to rev. 2 and showed us that in the letter to ephesus God says that they are really moral, patient, truth-loving people, but that they were in danger of losing their lampstand, because they had lost their love for Christ and that they need to repent and do the things they did in the beginning of their faith which were:

1. worshipping Christ
2. confessing our sins
3. destroying our idols

one other important point that he made was that people leave the church because something bad happens in their life and they blame God, like God owed them something or was indebted to them for being good people.  these people need to do exactly what the church in ephesus needed to do.  repent, worship Christ, confess their sin and destroy their idols.

the running theme for me through all these lectures was that the church needs to repent of many things, and we need to keep repenting.  we also need to stop trying to fill slots just because they’re empty and stop “evolving” toward culture and start “revolving around Jesus”.

if you read all the way through this: kudos, to you! if you want to look at some of the reflection questions they’ve posted online here is the link: http://advancethechurch.com