Keeping Your Church Growing

I read a blog post a couple of weeks ago. The post was titled something like, "We're Going to Stop Being a Welcoming Church." Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But as the post went on to explain, it was actually a good idea. His point was that his church was welcoming. They had coffee, they had greeters, they had people to help direct visitors to the right place. But in his view it wasn't enough. They needed to be an inviting church. That is, a church that the members invite people to. This pastor had stumbled on something that growing churches have been doing for a couple of millennia. People inviting their friends to church.

Now maybe you don't have any friends to invite to church. Maybe all your friends are  already in your church, or in some other church. Then you need to cultivate some new friends. Maybe they won't be friends that you can invite to church right away. But give it time. Pray for them. Be a real friend to them. Then one day, maybe you can invite them to church. Sounds simple. But many of us don't do it. And that's a shame, because there are plenty of people out there who need friends, and who need the church. They just don't know it yet. So get started.

While I'm on the subject, is your church a church that you'd want to invite people to? Is your church a welcoming church? I don't mean coffee and donuts. I mean a church where a new visitor feels accepted. Do people at your church interact with visitors? I don't mean a simple, "Hello" before moving on to someone else. I mean taking an active interest in the visitor. Not in an overwhelming, smothering fashion, but in a way that says to the visitor that you are interested in them as a person, not just a number that can be added to the "we had X number of visitors this month." Are the people in your church going to forego talking with their friends in order to converse with a stranger? If they're not, you don't have a welcoming church. Visitors won't come back. If they won't come back, there's less chance of them meeting Christ in your church.

Granted, some visitors don't want to be noticed. They'll come in late and leave early. They're probably not sure they really want to be there. Not much you can do about that. But that's not most visitors.They hope, even if they're not fully conscious of it, that someone will take notice of them. You be the one to do it.

This doesn't happen by accident. It happens by intent. If other people in your church are ignoring visitors, make sure you don't. Even if the visitor is someone you know will never join your church, such as a family visiting while on vacation, make sure you speak with them. Let them know that this is a church that welcomes visitors, that invites people, that wants strangers who will become friends.

If your church doesn't welcome visitors in this way, by drawing them in, letting them know they've been noticed, and that the church is interested in them, your church is already beginning to die. It may look good. It may have a lot of people. But it's already dying, because it's closing out those who need to be drawn in.

Think about it.

The 17:18 Series: Acts

A few days ago, I read this story: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/05/area-man-copies-out-entire-bible-by-hand, which I encourage you to read before continuing with this review. It was a perfect set-up for reviewing this book.

For those not familiar with this series, it is a series of essentially blank journals published by Reformation Heritage Books for the purpose of encouraging Christians to write out their own copy of the Scriptures. It is based on two considerations: first, that the king of Israel was required to write out for himself a copy of the book of the Law (Deut 17:18, hence the 17:18 in the series title); second, that those who write out notes learn better than those who merely listen or merely read.

The book gives the reader/writer a place to write out, book by book, a copy of the Scriptures for himself. There are some sixteen volumes of the series already in publication. As it says in the opening pages of the book itself, the Journible (I suppose this is a conflation of journal and Bible) “is a profoundly simple attempt to aid a person’s ability to engage the Word of God by slowing down the process of simply reading the text.” There are some helpful comments at the beginning of the volume to encourage and give direction to the writer. The journal is set up for the writer to write his copy on the right-hand page, leaving room for annotations on the left.

Granted, you don’t need a specially published journal to do this. You can buy your own journal, or a notebook, and do the same thing. But most good-quality journals cost more than this volume does, and most contain fewer pages. The aim is not to produce a work of art, as in the report I linked at the beginning of this review, but rather to own the text of Scripture in a way that the writer has not done before.

Now most people who use this will probably intend to copy out whatever translation of the Scriptures they currently use. However, I would suggest considering copying out the King James Bible, if for no other reason than to familiarize yourself with a translation that has gotten lost in the last forty years in most of evangelicalism. The modern translations have their place, and their us; even the “see Spot run” simple-language versions. But there is a beauty and rhythm to the language of the King James Bible that it would do many modern Christians good to rediscover. And it would give you reason to write explanatory notes on the left-hand page about archaic words and other such considerations.

Contentment, Prosperity, and God’s Glory, Jeremiah Burroughs

Published in the Puritan Treasures for Today Series from Reformation Heritage Books.

This is a deceptively small book. But first, something about the author. Burroughs was a Puritan pastor (1599-1646). He is perhaps best known today for his treatise The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. This present book began as an appendix to that work, originally titled Four Useful Discourses. The Jewel focused on learning to be content in impoverished circumstances. This work focuses on being content in enriched circumstances.

This book is a careful abridgment of the original treatise, which was delivered as a series of sermons to Burroughs’s congregation at Stepney. The abridgment is very well done. The language has been modernized, and difficult language has been smoothed out. It has been reduced significantly in size, from a 284-page seventeenth century printing, to 119 pages.

Burroughs begins by making the point that contentment is in many ways more difficult for the rich than it is for the poor. We trust in our riches, rather than trusting in God. Riches become idols for us, so that we are unwilling to let them go. We abuse our riches by using them to indulge our lusts rather than by using them for the service of God. The chapters lead the reader through these considerations, teaching carefully not only the dangers, but the glorious possibilities for the rich Christian, if he will only learn to be content in his fullness.

I began by saying that this is a deceptively small book. It can be read quickly, being only 119 pages in about a 4 x 6 page size. But the reader will be better served by reading it slowly, a couple of pages a day, savoring the richness, meditating on Burroughs’s applications. The set-up of the book aids in this “slow read” approach, as each of the ten chapters is divided into smaller sections of a page or two each. Thus, while it could be read in a couple of afternoons, or even a single evening for the faster reader, it will prove more profitable by being savored over the course of a month or so of daily meditation.

An illustration of the kinds of dangers of riches that Burroughs warns about: I read a story online a couple of months ago. A woman had won ten million dollars in the lottery several years ago. Where was she today? Broke, back in the job she left when she won the lottery. All the money was gone. She did not know how to be rich, or to be content in her riches.

Since most American Christians are rich, especially by Puritan standards, most would benefit from giving this book a careful read. And for those who are not rich, an understanding of the dangers of riches may help them to be more content in their poverty.

How to Make Your Pastor a Better Preacher

Many people lament the state of preaching today. Much blame is laid on seminaries, and a good bit on the preachers themselves. But it is possible there is also fault in the pews.

It is true that seminaries in general do not do a good job of producing preachers. Homiletics (instruction in preaching) is usually one class among dozens. Greek, Hebrew, church history, systematic theology, pastoral counseling, Christian education and other topics vie for a piece of the seminary pie. Even at a seminary with good preaching instruction, a student may have his preaching evaluated half a dozen times. So while some bad preaching may be the seminaries’ fault, they can hardly be blamed for all of it.

Preachers, too, are culpable in regard to bad preaching. Inadequate preparation is probably the leading culprit, though no doubt other things are involved. A pastor, especially a solo pastor, has a lot of responsibilities. Counseling, membership training, officer training, home and hospital visitation, demands of family and home, all take away from preparation time. There is, of course, laziness, carelessness, perhaps distaste for the work of preaching itself. It may be also that a pastor has a low view of his preaching abilities, and doesn't see any way to improve.

But it is possible that the people in the pews bear some of the responsibility for poor preaching. For one thing, congregations appear too tolerant of bad preaching. This may be for a number of reasons. First, many churches do not pay well, and the congregation may be harboring a “you get what you pay for” attitude, even if they may not recognize it. Or they may excuse bad preaching on the basis that the pastor is a really nice guy, or he’s so faithful in visitation, or he’s a great counselor. It may also be that many Christians simply have no idea what constitutes good preaching. Here is a minimalist definition of good preaching: a dealing with the biblical text that explains in a clear and orderly fashion what the text means, and identifies how it may be applied in the life of the Christian. Good preaching does not have to do with clever turns of phrase, though a good preacher may use them. Good preaching does not have to be loud (though all the people should be able to hear). Good preaching should be at least somewhat animated, and will be if the man is gripped by his message, but the amount and kind of animation will also depend on the personality of the man.

But aside from recognizing bad preaching, and refusing to put up with it, what can a congregation do to make their pastor a better preacher?

First, congregations must pray for their pastor. Pray that he has adequate time to prepare. Pray that he himself prays over his studies. Pray that he will be gripped by the message of the text so that it becomes his message as well. Pray that he would have wisdom and insight to be able to see clearly how to explain and apply the passage.

Second, congregations should prepare to hear the sermon. If you know ahead of time what passage your pastor will be preaching, spend time during the week studying it and praying over it, so that you are ready to hear it explained and applied. You’ll be surprised by how much this will help.

Third, congregations should both praise and criticize their pastor’s preaching. Now this is a touchy subject. I don’t mean here the meaningless “Good message, Pastor” as you’re going out the door after the service. I mean something like “Preacher, I really appreciated how you explained the difficulty in that passage” (and then be specific). Remember, too, that you can’t say much as you’re going out the door. If you were really struck by the sermon, send him a short email. As for criticism, do that in person. Set up an appointment. Prepare for it. Don’t make it a personal attack, but tie it directly to the sermon. “Pastor, I think you misapplied that passage.” Don’t take it personally if he doesn't agree with you. And don’t be a constant critic. Diligent pastors are all too painfully aware of their shortcomings in the pulpit, and too frequent a diet of criticism from the congregation is discouraging.

Fourth, the congregation should be patient, especially with a beginning preacher. It can take time for a man to get comfortable in the pulpit. It takes time for him to develop in his sense of what is important in a passage and what is not. As children do not go from taking the first step to running easily at top speed in the space of a day, a pastor takes time to develop his preaching skills. But if, over time, he shows no improvement; if his sermons remain garbled messes, impossible to follow, then send him packing. Don’t keep him because he’s a nice guy. Don’t keep him because he’s faithful in visitation. Send him packing because he’s not doing the primary job that he is called to do. Your congregation deserves good preaching and will die without it.

When the Bible Offends

Last week I dealt with a post from Dr. William Mounce on the use of the vocative “Woman” in the New Testament. His view was that this was difficult, if not impossible to translate, because it sounds offensive to modern Western ears (see last week’s post). In reading through the comments on Mounce’s post, it became clear that a number of his readers agreed with him. They found the term offensive, or upsetting.

That raised the following question for me: What are we to do when something we read in the Bible offends us? It seems to me that there are three responses. The first response should be for us to ask ourselves whether we have understood the Bible properly. As I sought to show last week with the “woman” issue, this may not be particularly difficult to determine. Some time spent with a concordance, or a commentary, or a study Bible should clarify many things for us. When it becomes clear that we have misunderstood the passage, we need to labor to bring our understanding in line with what the Bible is actually saying at that point. We may help ourselves in this by seeking to explain the true meaning of the passage to someone else. I have found in my two decades plus of teaching that teaching something to someone else clarifies it for us.

Second, we should seek to determine if perhaps our offense is with the Bible, or with something within the cultures in which the Bible was written. For example, I find the practice of polygamy offensive. It is clear from Genesis 2 and from Jesus’ teaching that polygamy is contrary to God’s purposes for marriage. The fact that many people in the Old Testament practiced is no justification for the practice. The mystery is why God tolerated that sin through many generations of the lives of his Old Testament people. I can live with that. We each ought to be aware that God tolerates many sins in our own lives, and in our own cultures. The fact that he tolerates them and does not immediately judge them is no justification for our continuing in them, or for encouraging others in their practice.

Third, if we have properly understood the text, and the problem is not some cultural distinctive or some sin issue, then we should conclude that our thinking ought to be brought to the captivity of Christ. We may find it offensive that Paul tells women to be silent in the church (1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2). However, Paul bases his statements not on cultural considerations but on the created order. In other words, the command of Paul is not a product of Paul’s misogyny, but is appropriate to the order of life as God has created it. (For a fine exegetical treatment of the issue of women in the church, I would refer my readers to God’s Good Design, by Claire Smith.) Submitting our thinking to Christ is one of the most difficult things to do, but it is necessary for our sanctification. We like to think that we are right, and that our own practices ought to be the standard for others. But our standard in all things is Christ, and it our responsibility as disciples of Christ to submit our thinking to his Word.

There. Isn’t that simple? No, because of The Nature, Power, Deceit, and

Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers, to borrow a title from John Owen. Conforming our thinking to the Word of God is a lifetime process empowered by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes when the Bible offends, we need to be offended so that the Spirit might perfect his work in us.

Thoughts on Bible Translation Prompted by Remarks of Dr. William Mounce

First, read Mounce’s comments here: http://www.koinoniablog.net/2013/04/an-untranslatable-word-%CE%B3%CF%8D%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B9-monday-with-mounce-183.html

Mounce seems to think that gunai (“woman,” in the vocative case) is essentially untranslatable because in his view, “it misconveys so badly.” Now let’s stop and think about this. Someone is reading the Bible, preferably in one of the translations that Mounce dismisses for translating gunai as simply “Woman.” In his view, the problem with that is that it leaves the reader “to figure out what it really means.” No doubt the direct address, “Woman” might be viewed as rude in today’s context. But first, the reader should stop to think. Is Jesus being rude to a woman he has just healed? Not likely. So the alert reader should recognize that Jesus is not being rude, and in the first century this direct address was not considered rude.

But suppose the reader thinks that Jesus might be being rude to this woman, as he seems to have been with the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30). Then he might look at a concordance to see how many times Jesus uses this address in the gospels. After all, the reader is concerned about Jesus’ possible rudeness here. So the reader discovers, with a little research, that Jesus uses this direct address seven times in the gospels: once in Matthew 15:28; once in Luke 13:12 (the passage Mounce is dealing with); and five times in John (2:4, 4:21, 8:10, 19:26; 20:15). In two of those cases, Jesus is addressing his mother, which again indicates that it is unlikely that he is being rude. In one case (John 20:15) Jesus is clearly addressing Mary Magdalene tenderly after the resurrection.

So with a little research and a little reflection, the thoughtful reader concludes that however rude “Woman” might appear to us at first glance, it is not, in fact, a rude form of address. Rather it appears to be a formal (rather than casual) form of address.

How is the translator to address this in a translation? This is another point at which Mounce and I differ. He seems to think that a translation ought to be explanatory, as he applauds the NLT for translating “dear woman.” He then discusses a number of other possible translations, none of which seem to him to work. My sense is that there are other ways of addressing this difficulty than with an explanatory translation. First (and perhaps easiest), the Bible editors could put in a marginal note explaining that “Woman” was not rude in Jesus’ day. At the next level would be the study Bible, which could also add an explanatory note. Then there are commentaries, most of which, especially those geared to the lay reader, will address the point. Finally, there is the responsibility of the preacher, who in preaching from one of these passages ought to clarify the point for his listeners.

To insist that the translation is responsible to clarify this point (and many others) seems to me to fail to recognize two things. First, at what point does the explanatory translation stop explaining? There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of verses that might be unclear or misunderstood by someone. How many of these should the translator explain? Is the translator supposed to try to prevent readers from taking the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view on John 1:1? There are two explanatory translations that I know of: The Amplified Bible, and Wuest’s Expanded Translation of the New Testament. They are both awful. They are unreadable in any normal sense of that word. The result would be the same if Mounce followed his reasoning to its conclusion: a translation/commentary that doesn’t work as either one.

The second point that Mounce misses here is what the Westminster Confession of Faith calls the “due use of ordinary means” (WCF 1:7). What that means is that there are means by which people can learn the meaning of the Bible any time it appears to them to be unclear, confusing, or just plain rude. Marginal notes, concordances, commentaries, and preachers faithfully expounding the Word all fall under that “due use.”

So translate it “Woman.” Let the reader puzzle it out for himself, or consult a commentary, or ask his pastor. But don’t turn a Bible translation into a travesty.

“Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.” A. E. Housman

Paulin Bedard, In Six Days God Created, Xulon Press, 2013

Bedard is the pastor of Reformed Church of Saint-Georges, Quebec.

This is a very fine book. As a quick look at the table of contents will tell you that it is a critique of the framework hypothesis. For those of you who don’t know what the framework hypothesis is, it is a way of reading Genesis 1-2 which sees the material as set out in a framework fashion. That is, Days 1-3 of Genesis 1 parallel Days 4-6. The days are not ordinary days, nor are they entirely figurative (depending on which framework author you read). The result is that Genesis 1-2 is considered as not having anything to say about how God created, but rather make the point that God did create. The material is exalted poetic narrative, rather than historical narrative, hence cannot be read literally.

The book is divided into three sections. The first is, “The Literal Interpretation is Satisfactory.” The point of this section is to argue against the view of many framework proponents, who propose that there are a number of problems with taking Genesis 1-2 literally that are solved by the framework hypothesis. Bedard does a commendable job of addressing the issues, showing that the supposed problems are more imaginary than real.

Section two is, “The Framework Interpretation is Problematic.” In this section, Bedard shows the many exegetical problems of the framework hypothesis. Some framework proponents attempt to deal with the problems, others seem to deny that the problems exist. However, by fairly presenting the arguments of the framework proponents in their own words, Bedard succeeds in demonstrating that the problems are real, they are serious, and that framework proponents have not successfully addressed them.

The final section is, “The Framework Interpretation is Dangerous.” Here again, Bedard is careful not to misrepresent framework proponents. But he does demonstrate a number of serious consequences to the framework hypothesis. Not all framework proponents have followed their views into these consequences, but some have. Some of these dangers are: the rejection of the historicity of some events (including a historical Adam and Eve); a false view of the doctrine of God’s accommodation; the lack of clarity in the Scriptures, particularly regarding fundamental issues; the pervasive influence of modern secular science. With regard to this last, many framework proponents argue that their view arises from a strict exegesis of the text, not from an attempt to accommodate the long age of the earth that is the standard view in modern science. Bedard recognizes this, because he has carefully studied these authors. But it is also clear that a large number of framework proponents are driven to find an explanation of Genesis 1-2 that will accord with modern scientific views. Bedard allows these men to speak for themselves.

This is a devastating critique of the framework hypothesis. It is especially so because Bedard has been careful not to misrepresent framework proponents. Not all who hold to the framework hypothesis agree in all the particulars, and Bedard is careful to note that. Bedard allows them to speak in their own words, and he has carefully cited the views he presents. I would recommend this work first to all proponents of the framework hypothesis, that they might see the exegetical and theological difficulties of the view. I would also recommend this book to all those who have an interest in what the Bible has to say about the origins of the earth. Does the Bible speak plainly, or does it speak in frameworks?