Welcome to this week’s edition of “The Sunday Seven.” As always, this post is all about sharing some of the more interesting news and insights that I have encountered throughout the week, as well as a little humor meant to lighten your day. Hopefully, as you scan the links, you’ll find a little something here that will peak your interest and give you pause to think. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
Having just received a copy of David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, I am already anticipating that it will make my top-10 books of 2012. Here, are the opening few pages for your consideration. If they capture your imagination, be sure to purchase the book. It only gets better.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
“The youngest megachurch pastor in history.”
While I would dispute that claim, it was nonetheless the label given to me when I went to pastor a large, thriving church in the Deep South — the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. From the first day I was immersed in strategies for making the church bigger and better. Authors I respect greatly would make statements such as “Decide how big you want your church to be and go for it, whether that’s five, ten, or twenty thousand members.” Soon my name was near the top of the list of pastors of the fastest-growing U.S. churches. There I was … living out the American church dream.
But I found myself becoming uneasy. For one thing, my model in ministry is a guy who spent the majority of his ministry time with twelve men. A guy who, when he left this earth, had only about 120 people who were actually sticking around and doing what he told them to do. More like a minichurch, really. Jesus Christ – the youngest minichurch pastor in history.
So how was I to reconcile the fact that I was now pastoring thousands of people with the fact that my greatest example in ministry was known for turning away thousands of people? Whenever the crowd got big, he’d say something such as “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Not exactly the sharpest church-growth tactic. I can almost picture the looks on the disciples’ faces. “No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We’ll never get on the list of the fastest growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you.”
By the end of that speech, all the crowds had left, and only twelve men remained. Jesus apparently wasn’t interested in marketing himself to the masses. His invitations to potential followers were clearly more costly than the crowds were ready to accept and he seemed to be okay with that. He focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction.
Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings. I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture said were the most important. So what was I to do? I found myself faced with two big questions.
The first was simple. Was I going to believe Jesus? Was I going to embrace Jesus even though he said radical things that drove the crowds away?
The second question was more challenging. Was I going to obey Jesus? My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus’ words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him. In other words, my biggest fear is that I will do exactly what most people did when they encountered Jesus in the first century.
That’s why I’ve written this book. I am on a journey. But I am convinced it is not just a journey for pastors. I am convinced these questions are critical for the larger community of faith in our country today. I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical, but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe. And I am convinced we have a choice.
You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him.
I invite you to join the journey with me. I do not claim to have all the answers. If anything, I have more questions than answers. But if Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus.
It has been said that you are what you eat; and if that is true, well … we’ll get to that in a moment. In the meantime, there is no denying the fact that when it comes to eating healthy, many Americans are simply out to lunch. At this point in our collective history, more than one out of every three adults is technically obese[1] while 15% of children between the ages of 6 and 11 are well on their way. Moreover, it’s not as if 30% of Americans have always been this overweight. This is trend that has has arisen largely over the past 20 years. Check out this brief video and you’ll see what I mean.
In 1917, Jeannette Rankin, an avowed pacifist and member of the Republican party,[1] became the first woman elected to serve in the United States Congress. Since that time, only 275 other women have served in that august and rather insular body.
Stop and think about that for a moment. In the 95 years that have passed since Rankin’s election, only 275 other women have been elected to the United States Congress. Why is that?
Why is it that women make up 18.9% of the world’s legislatures,[2] but only 17.4% of the United States Congress?[3] How is it that this progressive, democratic, world-shaping empire actually elects fewer women to public office than other regions in the world?
[1] In an odd historical footnote, Rankin is also known as the only member of Congress to have voted against the United States entering into both World War I and World War II.
As we continue to explore the rise of narcissism in North American society, we have to realize that this growth in self-obsession is not happening in a vacuum. There are an abundance of factors involved in fostering this national quagmire, perhaps none more significant than the changes that have occurred in our attitudes regarding parenting.
In their latest book, The Narcissism Epidemic, Twenge and Campbell offer some unique insights gleaned from a large, national study that dates all the way back to 1958. In this study, parents were asked the following question: “If you had to choose, which thing on this list would you pick as the most important for a child to learn to prepare him (or her) for life?” The options were as follows:
The first thing to note, from of this study, is that parents’ greatest desire for their children has not changed from 1958 to 2004. Over the past half-century, parents consistently prioritize a child’s ability “to think for themselves.” This is not terribly surprising, for personal autonomy is one of the supreme values endorsed by the Enlightenment. And if America is anything at all, it is, at bare minimum, a living, breathing experiment in Enlightenment values.
Somewhat more surprising is the trend related to obedience. Take a look at the graph below:
Back in 1958, obedience was the second greatest virtue amongst this list of desirable traits to be possessed by one’s child. But by 2004, obedience has declined by 15% to an all-time low, where it now ranks second to last.
What do you think? Is it possible to maintain an orderly home where obedience is not valued? What about a society? Is it possible for society to function if obedience is no longer a virtue? And lastly, what can we reasonably expect in a society where narcissism is on the rise, at the same time that obedience, as a taught virtue, is on the decline?
* * * * * * * * * * *
For previous posts in this series, please feel free to make use of any of the following links.
Greater than Jesus: The Narcissism Epidemic … (part 3)
The Narcissism Epidemic … (part 2)
The Narcissism Epidemic … (part 1)
According to a recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey, 93% of Americans view themselves in a positive light. Concurrently, only 1% of Americans view themselves negatively.[1]
Dean Debnam, the president of PPP, had this to say: “Americans have a very high opinion of themselves. You can either argue that we’re a psychologically healthy nation … or you can argue that we’re an arrogant one. Either interpretation fits the numbers.”
Incidentally, 91% of Americans have a positive view of Abraham Lincoln while only 90% have a favorable view of Jesus. This of course leads to the conclusion:
[1] http://www.christianpost.com/news/jesus-second-most-popular-person-in-america-poll-finds-63140/
