WHAT DOES THE BIBLE REALLY TEACH ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY? by Kevin DeYoung (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Last week, my review of What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung was published in Themelios: An International Journal for Students of Theological and Religious Studies (40.3, December 2015).

I was honored that it was published. DeYoung’s book is not only my favorite book on the topic, it’s also my favorite book of 2015.

Whether you agree with the traditional Christian understanding of sexuality or whether you disagree . . . whether you think you understand all of the issues or whether you are confused . . . you should read DeYoung’s book. I highly recommend it.

You can read the full review below, or you can find it on the Themelios website here and download the PDF here (my review is on pp. 180-181).

*     *     *

Kevin DeYoung. What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015. 160 pp. £7.99/$12.99.

My grandmother is theologically conservative, but she’s stayed in a denomination that has drifted. She wants to know. The barista at Starbucks who found out I’m a pastor wants to know. The young family who visited our church and talked to me in the foyer afterward wants to know. They all want to know what the Bible really teaches about homosexuality. Kevin DeYoung has written the book to answer their questions.

What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

By Kevin DeYoung

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DeYoung is the senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI and the author of several books, including Just Do Something, The Hole in Our Holiness, Taking God at His Word. In all of these books, DeYoung presents rich, complex doctrines—whether the will of God, sanctification, Scripture, or now sexuality—to a popular audience, and he does so in ways that are clear and compelling without being simplistic. In this current book, DeYoung affirms the traditional Christian understanding of sexuality and engages the most common objections to this view. The book is structured in two central parts, with an introduction at the start, and a conclusion and several appendices at the end.

In the introduction, DeYoung notes that questions related to homosexuality abound. “How can I minister to my friend now that he’s told me he’s attracted to men? Should I attend a same-sex wedding?” (p. 16). But his book is only about one question, at least directly. It’s the one question that Christians must answer before all of the others: According to the Bible, is homosexual practice a sin that needs to be forgiven and forsaken, or is it, under the right circumstances, a blessing that we should celebrate and solemnize? Readers familiar with DeYoung, or Crossway, won’t be surprised at his answer. He writes, “I believe same-sex sexual intimacy is a sin.” And then he adds, “Why I believe this is the subject of the rest of the book” (p. 17).

[To read the rest of the review, please visit Themelios (40.3, December 2015).]

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RELATED POSTS

No Longer Slaves

In the spring, we introduced our church to the song “No Longer Slaves” by Bethel Music. If you haven’t heard the song before, you need to. You can watch the video here, see the lyrics at Bethelmusic.com, and you can buy the song (and album) on iTunes.

http://www.bethelmusic.com/we-will-not-be-shaken

But before I leap into this post, let me acknowledge one thing. Apparently, there are some theological issues worthy of discussion around Bethel Church and their understanding of apostleship and authority, as well as their practice of spiritual gifts.* While these are important topics, they won’t take us in the direction I want to pursue in this post.

Here, I only want to share five reasons why I love this song.

1. I love when ‘singing themes’ overlap with ‘preaching themes.’

In our church, we try to sing songs that share themes with the sermon. In other words, we try to sing what we preach and preach what we sing. This tends to help us, I believe, live what we preach.

Coordination between music and preaching doesn’t always work out, nor should it have to, but it is the ideal. And this spring, as we were teaching through Galatians, it was the perfect time to introduce “No Longer Slaves” since the song comes primarily from Galatians 4:4-7, 31 (and also Romans 8:12-16).

2. I love the powerful, gospel imagery.

Slavery. Bondage. Deliverance. These are explosive themes in our culture, like firecrackers dipped in gasoline and rolled in magnesium.

Consider the acclaim of a movie like “12 Years a Slave.” As a friend pointed out to me, the movie was nominated for 323 movie awards and won 164 of them, including three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild. Additionally, the movie has a 96% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes despite being a very difficult movie to watch. It’s tough to find any movie with such a high score on RT.

It’s not just a cultural issue, either. Themes of slavery, bondage, and deliverance are supercharged biblical motifs, as well, motifs which reach their apex in the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

The gospel is the announcement that Messiah has come, and through his costly death and victorious resurrection, he’s delivered his people from slavery to sin, bringing them into the freedom of relationship with God.

Or, in short, the gospel is the announcement of how orphans become children and slaves become heirs.

And that’s something to sing about.

3. I love the line “All my fears were drowned in perfect love.”

I had missed it so many times, but on one morning as we sang it in church, I finally noticed it. The first two lines from the bridge go like this:

You split the sea, so I could walk right through it
All my fears were drowned in perfect love

Obviously, the imagery in the first line is from Exodus (“you split the sea…”), but finally, after listening to the song maybe 20 times, I noticed the same Exodus imagery in the second line as well: “All my fears were drowned in perfect love.”

In the Exodus, God splits the Red Sea; the Israelites walk through it; and then, the perfect and protecting love of God that parted the Sea for his people, then un-parts the Sea—drowning all the enemies of God’s people (“All my fears were drowned in perfect love”).

4. I love the warmth.

I love the line, “You surround me, with songs of deliverance, until all my fears are gone.” It reminds me that God, in all of his terrifying power, is my salvation.

We see similar reflection on God’s power and love in Psalm 136:10-17. In this passage, the “steadfast love” of God is repeatedly juxtaposed with God’s crushing power on display in Exodus. Just think, the mighty arms that drowned Pharaoh’s chariots are the same arms that embrace us in Jesus Christ.

5. I love the raw emotion.

Finally, I just love the raw emotion. Have you listened to the whole song? Have you heard the ending?

One of the volunteer music leaders at our church pointed this out to me. He told me that singing as Jonathan David Helser does near the end of the song, is not good for your vocal cords—not good at all. Apparently, it puts them under duress. (You can jump to this part in the song here.)

I’m certainly not musically trained, but I’m sure that’s probably true.

But he sure sounds passionate, doesn’t he?

_______________

[I want to say a special “thank you” to Ben Bechtel and David Barreca for reviewing this post and their musical leadership at our church. And thanks to everyone at Community Evangelical Free Church who serves in our music ministry. You help us encounter and live the gospel.]

* For an interesting podcast that discusses these issues, listen to the first hour of Greg Koukl’s interview with Doug Geivett on Stand to Reason. Bethel Church is named around 46:30, but you’ll need to listen earlier if you want to understand the context.

Lost in December: A Short Story

For the last several months, I've been working hard on a short story called "Lost in December."

It's a story about having a busy schedule, experiencing a miscarriage, and discovering what's really important in life.

I'm giving it away to anyone who subscribes to my weekly updates. You can read an excerpt below. 

Thank you to all those who helped polish this story: Kelby Adams, Carolyn Aiken, Eunice and Keith Davis, Marc DeSantis, Scott and Stacey Ervin, Mike Grenier, Ally Hall, Meghan Jenkins, Brian Neese, Remington Moll, Tom Reidy, Stephen Smith, Megan Spinney, Linda Vargo, Molly Vrbicek, Robb and Diane Vrbicek, Amanda Waddell, Andy Walker, and Mary Wells.

And, of course, thank you to the one for whom this story isn’t just a story; I love you.

*     *     *

Excerpt from "Lost in December: A Short Story"

It had been a cold day in December, and not just for Tucson. It was made worse by the way it forced itself on us. No one had the right coats with them; it had been warm when we woke up.

Allison and I hadn’t talked all day, and we had driven to the Christmas party separately. She had errands, and I had work to finish. But now we made the brief walk from our separate cars to the restaurant together. “I’m glad you could come, sweetie. Did the babysitter show up?” I asked Allison.

“It’s cold. Let’s just get inside.”

That day, even the foothills, which never have snow, were white. My wife had goose bumps.

As I held the door open for her, I commented that I didn’t remember coming to this restaurant before. She said they were all the same. 

*     *     *

If you'd like to get a copy of the whole story, click here.

Godless vs. Godward Gratitude

This fall, I wrote a short response to an essay by Laura Hillenbrand, which she wrote on the topic of gratitude called “Two-Minute Ode to Chocolate.” Actually, it’s probably the other way around; it was Hillenbrand who wrote the short essay, and I who wrote a long response.

Regardless, my central critique was that real gratitude must terminate somewhere (or better, not somewhere but on Someone). Hillenbrand’s gratitude, however, while abundant in her essay, doesn't terminate anywhere or on anyone. Instead, her thanksgiving just wafts away, as though it will be reabsorbed back into the impersonal universe that gave her such marvelous gifts in the first place.

This, however, is not how gratitude should work. This is god-less gratitude. It’s not godless because it is the sum of all evil; it’s godless because it is gratitude devoid God.

At one place in my response I wrote,

I love Hillenbrand’s prose, but she simply stops short; she traces [the source of her many blessings] around the globe to farmers and seeds and donkeys and red soil and even to the heavens for rain. But while she traces them “in every direction,” her gratitude arrives nowhere, like a perpetual road trip without a destination. Hillenbrand explores the rivers but never to their source.

True gratitude traces blessings back to their source, their ultimate source. True gratitude is Godward.

We see this kind of Godward gratitude very clearly in Psalm 136, which serves as a stark contrast to Hillenbrand’s essay. Psalm 136 has 26 verses, each with a unique statement that expresses thanksgiving to God followed by the repetition of, “for his steadfast love endures forever.”

The psalm starts with God,

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;

And it ends with God,

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

And in the middle, the psalm thanks God for general things, such as

25 [It is] he who gives food to all flesh,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

As well, the psalm thanks God for specifics things, such as

15 [he] overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;

This is Godward gratitude.

It’s gratitude that starts with God and ends with God. It’s gratitude that sees every blessing, the specific and the general, as gifts from a personal God—not an impersonal universe.

In two days, millions of people will celebrate Thanksgiving. We’ll sit around a table, we’ll eat a hearty meal, and we’ll (hopefully) express our gratitude. This is a good thing. It’s healthy to remind ourselves of the many blessings that we have received.

But this Thanksgiving, don’t make Hillenbrand’s mistake. Don’t make the mistake of failing to direct your gratitude towards God. Instead, trace your thanksgiving to it’s source.

As you go around the table to express your thanks, rather than simply saying, “This year, I’m so thankful for ___________,” instead say, “This year, I’m so thankful to God for ___________.”

It’s a subtle but huge difference. If you say this from your heart, not as a Christian cliché, it’s the difference between godless and Godward gratitude.

Finish like a Champ

Recently, I’ve been posting some tips to help pastors find the right job in a local church. This post is a continuation of the series. It’s about what to do before you leave your current role, namely, finish like a champ.

*     *     *

When I was thirteen years old, I ran a local 5k. At the start of the race, some kid ran full-speed for the first 100 yards. I passed him at 200 yards. And so did everyone else.

The next day, however, he got his picture on the front page of the paper. I remember being really mad about it.

See, he started well but didn’t finish well.

Anybody can start a race well. But they don’t give you medals at the starting line. It’s finishing well that counts—in a race and especially in life. Marriages can start well, pastorates can start well, and so can the Christian life. But consider Solomon in the Old Testament (1 Kings 3; 11:1-8) or Demas in the New Testament (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:4; 2 Timothy 4:10). They seem to have started well, only to fail at what really counts: finishing well.

At the point in the job process in which you have put all the previous tips into practice (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6), you are likely in the process of a transition. Maybe you even have your house on the market and looking at new homes in another city. That’s great, right?

But planning for and making the transition are hard work, and, in the midst of it, you may find it easy to neglect your current role. You may find it easy to forget to finish well.

I remember what a busy season this was for me when I found my first job in a local church. After I accepted the offer, I still had to finish my final exams at school, complete projects at work, and make updates on my home. This was hard work. There was a lot to do. But whether it’s difficult or not, is irrelevant. God calls you to finish like a champ.

I’ve worked in several places, and it’s always memorable and telling when someone finishes well or doesn’t. Those are the memories that last. Did he simply coast to the finish line, collecting paychecks but not really working? Or was he actually fired for misconduct? Or, on the other hand, did he finish all of his responsibilities, tie up loose ends, and go above and beyond to make sure no one would be left with unfinished projects—to make sure he finished well?

How you finish is what people remember.

I know of a pastor who oversaw the small group ministry at his church. As he prepared to transition to a new church, he continued to help launch small groups, even launching one a mere two days before he left. It was confusing to people—in a good way. Why would he keep working like this?

It says a lot about us, and our God, when we finish strong, especially when we have a “better” job starting in a matter of days. Regardless of who the employer is, we ultimately work for the Lord, and therefore we should work “heartily” unto him (Colossians 3:23).

Many times people don’t finish strong. But Jesus did. And he calls us to do the same.

How to Leave a Church Well

An excerpt from the Epilogue to the church membership book I wrote called, Each Part Working Properly.

*     *     *

We’ve just spent three weeks talking about what it means to join a church generally and specifically to join our church. We’ve talked about what we believe about all sorts of theological doctrines, from the Gospel, to the EFCA statement of faith, and we even touched on premillennialism, Reformed theology and complementarianism. We’ve talked about where our denomination has been, how our church was planted, and how, in the future, we’d also like to plant churches. We’ve talked about the importance of being practically connected to God’s body, the local church, and we have talked about the story God has given you to share. As I said at the start, this was our attempt to love you well. You need to know what you are getting into when you join a church. It’s not a small decision.

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But we’re not done yet; there is one more thing to cover.

We live in transient times. People can so quickly change cell phone numbers, email addresses, and even houses, jobs, and careers. In today’s culture, there are simply not many things that have permanence, even from a human perspective, and this includes loyalty to a local church.

All of this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does create the need for a conversation about how to leave a church well. In this short epilogue, our purpose is not to delve into all the potential reasons for leaving a church—the good, the bad, and the ugly. But given the fact that, unless you and I die while at Community, at some point in our lives we will all move on to another church for one reason or another.

What we ask is this: when the time does arrive, that you make the necessary effort to leave Community well. What “well” looks like will vary from situation to situation. Perhaps it involves a simple phone call to the church office to let us know. Or perhaps it involves a longer conversation with members of the pastoral staff.

Because we really do care about you, we don’t simply want you to fade away, or worse yet, to leave with feelings of resentment and hurt, or unresolved conflict. Leaving a church poorly is not good for anybody—the person, the particular church from which you leave, and even the next church that you join. In fact, if you didn’t leave well from your previous church, it’s not too late. God wants you to do so, because when we talk about the church, we’re talking about Jesus’s bride.

And as God loves you, we love you. So, if you should decide to become connected to our fellowship, great. But please love us enough in return to leave well, if and when the time comes.

[Photo by William Warby / CC BY] 

NEWTON ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE by Tony Reinke (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Tony Reinke. Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ (Theologians on the Christian Life). Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2015. 288 pp. $19.99.

I’m not a John Newton scholar.

But likely, neither are you. Likely, you only know the things most of us know: Newton wrote the classic hymn Amazing Grace, and that he was a former slave trader in the British Empire, who, upon conversion, became an influential pastor and author.

That’s about all.

However, if we only know this, then we have only sampled the appetizers about Newton. There’s more. Newton’s life is a spiritual, gourmet grocery store, and author Tony Reinke spent several years selecting and preparing for us a splendid meal. It’s called Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ.

Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ (Theologians on the Christian Life)

By Tony Reinke

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The book is part of a series by Crossway called “Theologians on the Christian Life”; it’s a series designed to expand our palates. Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor, the series editors, explain in their preface that modern Christians need perspective from the past to correct our overemphasis on the present, on the NOW.

A Focus on Newton’s Letters

Perspective from the past doesn’t necessarily mean biography, however; and this is certainly the case with Reinke’s contribution. There are occasional details about Newton’s sailing career (especially a few treacherous moments), and a few passing references to his marriage (which was evidently quite exemplary), but the focus is not his life—but his letters. Newton wrote volumes of them, a thousand of which have been collected and published. Reinke writes,

I have read and reread every letter with the goal of condensing his core message and collecting his most distinct contributions on the Christian life. (p. 31)

That’s no small task. On every page, the extensive footnotes remind readers of the enormity of Reinke’s endeavor.

And by the way, when you hear “personal letters,” don’t think personal e-mails, or even “thank you” or “birthday” cards. Instead, think blog post: think thoughtful words intended for a wider reading. In fact, letter writing was the social media of the 18th century, Reinke writes (p. 22).

The book is structured in 14 chapters, with fitting bookends that focus on the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ and the insufficiency of self. Other chapters cover topics such as “Indwelling Sin” (Chapter 5), “The Goal of Bible Reading” (Chapter 10), and “Victory over Spiritual Weariness” (Chapter 12).

Some Things I Love

First, I love the writing.

Reinke and Newton are gifted with words, especially fresh metaphors and similes.

Consider these examples from Reinke: he describes the human protections one makes for his or her soul as “castles of cardboard” (p. 53); a Christian who walks in God’s grace as one who will “rub the world’s fur in the wrong direction” (p. 100); and our longings for God as “dehydrated affections” (p. 114). Cardboard, fur, and dehydration—all fresh.

And Newton, for example, describes the remaining sinful desires in a Christian as trying to write with perfect handwriting while sin and Satan keep smacking your elbow (p. 112); of faith surviving inside a Christian like “a spark burning in the water” (p. 116); and preaching his Calvinism as “sugar [in tea]. I do not give it alone, and whole; but mixed and diluted” (p. 26). Scribbles, spark, and sugar—all fresh.

Second, I love the solid theology.

Junk food can taste good, but it’s not good for you. And poison might taste good, but it’s certainly not good for you. In contrast, what I love about Newton on the Christian Life, is that the writing tastes good and works for our health, not against it.

Both Newton and Reinke are evangelical and reformed, which means they love the Bible, cherish the gospel of free grace from a big God, and believe the “substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ is the epicenter of ministry” (p. 56). These are the meat and potatoes, plus the kale, wheat germ, and chia seeds of the Christians life; yet it’s all prepared by authors who make nutrition tasty.

I think it’s for these two reasons—skill in writing and large overlap in theological emphasis—that John Piper says what he says in the foreword about Reinke and Newton. He writes,

One of the most remarkable things about this book is that the voice of Tony Reinke and the voice of John Newton have become almost indistinguishable. (p. 15)

When I first read that, I wasn’t sure exactly what Piper meant, or if it would even be a good thing to have such a blending of voices, but now I see what he means, and I agree—it is a good thing.

Finally, I love the devotional warmth.

I won’t belabor examples, but consider two. On page 158, Reinke encourages pastors in their struggle over the “imperceptible growth” they so often see (or don’t see!) in their flock. And on page 215, he challenges “Christian communicators, songwriters, authors, and pastors” to “display the magnificent beauty of Christ” in all that they do. Both of these spoke to me. You, perhaps, are not a pastor or communicator, but as you read the book, I’m sure you’ll find sections that speak to you with equal devotional warmth; I’m sure of it.

One “Word to the Wise” & One Pushback

First, one quick heads up to readers. The nature of the book, and I suspect the series, lends itself to lots of block quotes. Readers accustomed to skipping these will have some re-training to do, especially when Newton’s poetry and hymns are quoted, as these require even closer reading. But don’t let this scare you. Just be ready to chew this delightful meal slower than normal.

Second is my one critique. Reinke saves his one pushback on Newton for the end of the book, as I have in this review (pp. 260-3). His pushback is related to, what Reinke detects, as an imbalance in Newton’s theology.

Newton, in an effort to be faithful to the Bible’s emphasis on the sinfulness of man—including the remaining sin in a believer’s life which rightly brings God’s displeasure—tended to undervalue something else that the Bible does teach, namely, that in the doctrine of definite atonement, there is “an unbreakable and particular love” that God has for his children, regardless of their moment-by-moment obedience. Or in short, Reinke sees in Newton an overemphasis on God’s displeasure with sin that kept him (and others) from resting in God’s abiding gospel-given favor, the favor purchased on the cross.

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere, right?

A lot of learning happens at the points of contention: learning about Newton, learning about Reinke, learning about Christian thought, learning about joy, learning about the God who made us and his Word that sustains us.

I tend to think more frequent “pushbacks” might have helped us learn these lessons. They might have worked like rumble strips on a highway, that is, kept us alert, whereas smooth sailing, albeit through beautiful scenery, was less engaging—you can zone out. I’m not advocating driving on the rumble strips indefinitely (who wants that book?!), just a tap here and there to keep us attentive.

Despite this pushback, I love the book and highly recommend it.

Reinke writes that he hopes we will think of his book as “a field guide meant to get dirty, dog-eared, and faded in the clenched hands of a Christian pilgrim” (32).

Mine did. And if you read it, yours should too.

* Tony Reinke also wrote Lit! and The Joy Project, and edited Mom Enough (which I reviewed here, here, and here).

[Photo by milo bostock / CC BY]

Introduction from EACH PART WORKING PROPERLY

An excerpt from the Introduction to the church membership book I wrote called, Each Part Working Properly.

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Our membership class used to be on a Sunday after church. It was just an hour or two, but it made for a long day.

In the class, a few pastors would share about our church, and we’d do our best to teach the material and answer some questions. Often, however, the whole thing felt rushed. Often I could tell that someone wanted to ask follow-up questions, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be “that guy”—you know, the one who keeps people at a meeting even longer, a meeting that’s already too long.

Each Part Working Properly: Membership at Community Free Church

$3.99

By Benjamin Vrbicek

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And it wasn’t just getting through all of our information that made the class rushed. We, as pastors, also wanted to get to know the people in the class, just as they wanted to get to know us. Yet there just wasn’t much time for this either.

Let me put it like this. It was as though we were all at a restaurant to enjoy a good meal with good company, but then we looked at our watches, realized we were out of time, and we had to go. So together, we scarfed down our food and left—a little unsatisfied.

Now, we have slowed things down.

Now, the membership class lasts four weeks. During the first three weeks, we cover topics that we think would be helpful to you as you consider what it might mean to join our church. We cover topics such as the meaning of the Gospel, our church’s history and structure, and our denomination’s core theological beliefs.

This may not seem very important—but trust me, it is.

Let me tell you why with a little story. I have a brother who started attending a church in the Midwest with his family. At first, things seemed great. They liked the pastor, the worship was engaging, and the people were friendly. And so they stayed. But as time went on, they began to have questions about the theology of the church. After a year and a half at the church, my brother told me, “You know, Benjamin, I don’t think we would have stayed here if we had known upfront what this church was about.” The church wasn’t teaching anything heretical, just off center a bit, at least from my brother’s perspective.

This put them in a place where they had to make a hard decision: stay, continuing to invest with people they now considered family, or leave, following their theological consciences only to start over somewhere else.

We don’t want this to happen to you. We care about you. This membership class, and this book, are expressions of that care. Of course, we believe this is a good church, a good place to worship God; that’s why we’re here. But you’ll need to decide that for yourself, and the best way for you to make that choice, we believe, besides participating in our weekly worship services, is by going through this class.

In addition to your learning about us, throughout the class, we hope to learn about you as well. That’s especially what the last week is about. On Week 4, there is no “material” per se; we dedicate all of the time in class for you to take turns sharing some of what God has done in your life. This will take place among the people that you’ve sat at the same tables with throughout the class. For some, perhaps even you, this sharing about what God has done in your life sounds like a scary thing. But it shouldn’t be; we’ll do our best to prepare you for it.

Finally, in this class we hope that you’ll find a ministry, or several ministries, for you to serve in; that is, we want you to find a place to use the gifts that God has given you. Growing churches can be misleading. Newcomers see all of the activity and think, “There’s no place here for me to serve.”

Wrong.

We may have a lot going on, but we want you—in fact, we need you—just as a healthy family needs all of its members. Because through the power of the Gospel, “when each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:15), God builds his church in love.

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[Photo by William Warby / CC BY]​ 

THE WORD BECAME FRESH by Dale Ralph Davis (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Dale Ralph Davis. The Word Became Fresh: How to Preach Old Testament Narrative Texts. United Kingdom: Christian Focus, 2006. 160 pp. $16.99.

As the full title suggests, The Word Became Fresh: How to Preach Old Testament Narrative Texts is a book about preaching. However, in the first sentence, author Dale Ralph Davis tells his readers,

This book was not my idea. I’m leery of saying too much about preaching.

Well then, I’m sure glad someone else had the idea for the book, because—reluctant to speak about preaching or not—Davis certainly has much wisdom to offer.

He’s eminently qualified for the task, having steeped in these passages for dozens of years and publishing commentaries on Joshua through 2 Kings. Moreover, he’s spent time as both professor (Reformed Theological Seminary) and pastor (most recently at Woodland Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi).

Warm, Devotional, and Spunky

The Word Became Fresh

By Dale Ralph Davis

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Early in the book, Davis writes, “If what I study won’t preach, there is something wrong with the way I study what I study” (p. 7). In other words, the upshot of observation done properly is devotional warmth and personal application. If you read enough books on theology, however, you’ll know this often does not prove true. Yet as Davis mined the biblical text, his observations certainly are.

Davis’s comments are also filled with spunk. For example, when describing the fire that Elijah called down from Heaven in 2 Kings 1, he writes that “servants of the state” were reduced to “puddles of carbon” (p. 62). That’s a poetically tenacious way to put it.

Additionally, he offers many contemporary illustrations that serve as bridges between our world and the world of the ancient text. In one place, Davis tells of a Chicago Cubs baseball player who insisted that his wife mock him whenever he was up to bat by crying, “You big bum! You can’t hit!” (p. 6-7). Davis follows with this comment:

Now biblical preaching is a bit like that. We need to hear some loving mockery behind us, crying, “So what? What difference does all this study make for anyone?” If we are constantly “berated” that way, it will make us far better interpreters.

Finally, throughout the book, Davis refreshed my belief that it is the rigorous exegesis of a passage—that is, the careful attention to how an author describes who God is and what he is doing among his people—that fuels the engaging sermon. The affections are not stirred by the light and casual skimming of Bible passages so that the preacher can find a place here and a place there from which to leap into other comments. No, good preaching is expository; it explains the text. Or said differently, Davis reminds us that in good preaching, the Bible functions not as the diving board (what you use to leap into other things), but rather the deep end of the pool (what you swim in).

A Book of Best Practices, Not “Hot” Tips

We live in a world that promises quick fixes and easy solutions. That’s not what Davis does in this book; he offers what people call in other industries “best practices,” those tried and true methods that have proven to be the most effective—not easy, but effective.

For example, on page 123 Davis demonstrates two ways to outline a passage: one that smothers preaching and another that fuels it. He uses 1 Samuel 16:1-13 as the case study. First, he writes that you could outline the passage in this way:

I. Samuel comes to Bethlehem, vv. 1-5
II. Samuel’s wrong move, vv. 6-7
III. An embarrassing moment, vv. 8-11
IV. David arrives, vv. 12-13

It’s an outline that’s faithful to the passage, sure, but, in the end, doesn’t generate much of a sermon: “some guy did this, and then some guy did that.” This outline won’t preach because “it’s not telling us what Yahweh is doing.”

Davis encourages us, rather, to consider centering our outlines on what God is doing. Imagine, instead, that our breakdown of 1 Samuel 16 goes like this:

I. The God who provides for his kingdom, v. 1
II. The God who stoops to our fears, vv. 2-5a
III. The God who prevents our folly, vv. 5b-7
IV. The God who reverses our conventions, vv. 8-13

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we do not simply have “some guy” on the move but some God. That’ll preach.

Two Places That “More” Would Have Been More

As much as I loved the book, let me offer two improvements, which, in a way, I hope will only be received as backhanded compliments—like a man who enjoyed the meal so much that he complained he couldn’t get seconds because the food was all gone.

The first improvement is that the book needs a Scripture Index for future referencing. Throughout, I found the exegesis so rich and instructive that I could imagine myself returning to the book each time I preached an OT narrative just to see if Davis touched on my passage. Without an index, however, all his exegetical trees disappear in the forest. Sure, many of his comments are likely in his specific commentaries, but in the Preface he tells readers directly that he tried to use OT passages not covered in his commentaries in order to not double up (p. ii). I’m sure I’ll re-read this book again in the future to have my preaching juices stirred, but the periodic use as a reference book won’t happen, and that’s a shame.

The second improvement would be if Davis gave readers a fuller discussion of, and justification for, what he calls a “theocentric” approach to preaching. By theocentric approach, he means, I gather, that he doesn’t believe every preached OT passage needs to become explicitly Christocentric, that is, each sermon does not need to explicitly culminate its focus on Jesus Christ. Davis is not opposed to being Christocentric, of course; he just doesn’t believe every passage or sermon requires it.

His discussion of this topic comes at the very end of the book in a short section titled “Addendum (can be skipped).” But Davis’s theocentric approach shouldn’t surprise careful readers; by the time he addresses it directly, he’s already spent 100+ pages demonstrating it.

This review is not the place to outline all of the issues involved with a “theocentric vs. Christocentric” debate, but preachers, and even mature Christians, should already be aware that the extent to which one sees—and how one sees—Jesus Christ in the OT is a huge and sometimes thorny topic.

In fact, I have a book on my shelf that’s devoted exclusively to this topic—the topic of knowing Jesus through the OT—and in the Preface, the author, who is a seasoned and accomplished scholar, likens the experience of writing about Jesus in the OT to a soldier doing an army-crawl on his belly while live rounds fly overhead. In other words, it’s a precarious endeavor. 

But let me be clear: I’m not desiring more from Davis on this topic because it’s the polemics that excite me. Not at all. I’m a practitioner, a vocational gospel preacher. Thus, several times a week I find myself telling others, “This is what this verse means, and this is how we come to know the grace of God in this passage.” And very often, “this verse” is in the OT, and very often, I wish I had more confidence in the correct “move” from the OT to the Gospel. If Davis had offered us more on this topic, I certainly would have been helped.

Despite these criticisms, perhaps the highest compliment I could pay Davis would be to say that, as I read The Word Became Fresh, I felt both instructed as a preacher, and refreshed as a reader of the Word.

*     *     *

A Few Favorite Quotes

“We are guilty of arrogance, not merely neglect, when we fail to beg for the Spirit’s help in the study of Scripture… We may have a high view of the Bible… Yet in our own Scripture work we easily ignore its chief Interpreter. Professionalism rather than piety drives us. We needn’t be surprised at our sterility and poverty if we refuse to be beggars for the Spirit’s help.” (Dale Ralph Davis, The Word Became Fresh, 1-2)

“We tend to get irritated if God doesn’t fit our notions of what he ought to be. We don’t, truth be told, want some God we have to fear. Which is to say, we don’t want the real God.” (Dale Ralph Davis, The Word Became Fresh, 65, emphasis original)

“Don’t be afraid to wade into the nasty narratives of the Old Testament, for it’s in the nasty stuff you’ll find the God of scary holiness and incredible grace waiting to reveal himself.” (Dale Ralph Davis, The Word Became Fresh, 74)

Buy on Amazon

[Photo by Michael Wifall / CC BY]

More Tips for Getting the Right Job in Ministry, Part III of V

I’ve been writing a series of posts designed to help those looking for a job in Christian ministry (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). But before I share more, let me back up and explain why I’m doing this.

Here’s the deal: it took me five years to get my seminary degree. It was exhausting. It cost thousands of dollars and took thousands of hours to learn the things I needed to help lead in a local church. But eventually, that training was complete. It was time for my classmates and me to look for jobs. But this didn’t go so well for many of us. In fact, there were some—guys I respected and thought would make great pastors—that struggled to find the right church or any church at all. I don’t know all of the reasons for this, but I suspect, in a few cases, it was because they didn’t know the right things to do to find a job.

In the end, I did find a great church to work for, but it didn’t come easy for me either. Struggles were many. This series of blog posts is designed to prevent pastors from floundering while trying to connect with the right church.

To use an analogy, consider an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). An EMT, though trained, eventually needs an ambulance to get him to the location of an accident. After all, he’s been trained to help those who are hurt. But if he can’t get to the accident, he can’t help.

Consequently, I’m writing these tips in order to get those who are trained connected to those who need them. I’m not so interested in helping pastors earn lots of money or find the sexiest job; that’s not what ministry is about. What I really hope to do is connect pastors to local churches.

With that background in mind, here are three more tips for candidates in order to accomplish this.

*     *     *

7. Build and leverage your personal network.
For whatever reason, I hate the word networking. It feels greasy. When I hear it, I think cheap suits, slick hair, gaudy gold chains, and a guy who points with his finger as he talks.

Even if this is a cliché, at one point or another, we’ve all had the miserable experience of being used, that is, we’ve all experienced networking after Genesis 3.

But what if networking didn’t have to look this way? What might networking have looked like before the fall?

Imagine gathering some friends and family to celebrate what God is doing in your life and asking them to pray for you as you consider future opportunities to serve God? Imagine reaching out to people that you don’t currently know, but who might be able and happy to genuinely help?

In other words, what if networking was more like buying a friend a cup of coffee than trying to sell a used car?

Networking, at its best, should just be purposeful communication with people you care about and people that care about you. Moreover, if this is what networking is, isn’t it something we could do without selling our souls or trampling on someone else’s. I think I can create a list of friends and acquaintances that would love to see me find a job where I’ll thrive. I bet you can too.

So make the list. Make a list of everyone you think would be excited to see you in a the right job in Christian ministry. Some of the people in your network are your close friends and family, people you know pretty well.

Others, perhaps, will be those you don’t know all that well, though they are people who might be “in the know” about potential jobs. For example, you might be able to ask that pastor of a large church in the large city that you want to move to if he’d be on the list. And perhaps you can add someone in the placement department of a seminary, or someone in an administrative role of a denomination who might know about job openings.

Now, I keep talking about a “list,” but let me be clearer because there are really two lists. At first, you’re just brainstorming a list of people who you think could help you in this process. That’s the first list.

The next step is to actually speak with these people and ask if they would mind being on an email list of people that you want to send periodic updates to regarding the progress of your job search. This is your actually networking list.

As you speak to people, be sure you always give a length of time for how long you expect to send emails. For example, you might say something like this: 

For the next 9 months, I’m going to email some friends updates about my job search progress. Would it be okay if I emailed you an update about once a month during that time?

Also, would you be open to sending me any ideas or leads you might have for me, and praying for me as you think about my situation?

That’s something most people will say yes to because they know what they are getting into. Moreover, it’s been made clear to them that you know you’ll be doing the bulk of the work; in other words, you’re not expecting them to find the job for you.

Before moving on, let me mention two more things about networking. First, in your preliminary phone call and in every subsequent email, remember to emphasize the level of confidentiality that is needed. Are they sworn to secrecy? Or are they able to, in fact encouraged to, forward your email around to their friends? The answer will depend on your situation, of course, but make sure it’s abundantly clear.

Second, when you email people, consider using the “Blind Copy” (BC) function. This way everyone isn’t able to see all of the other recipients of the email. This might not seem like a big deal, but here’s what you don’t want: you don’t want your dear aunt Jessica (bless her heart) to keep hitting “reply to all,” to tell you how excited she is for you. Not professional. (But the fault will be yours.)

And if your email list gets really large, you might even want to use a mass email service such as MailChimp (which should be free for the size we’re talking about). The upside of a mass email service is that your email will look professional, but the downside is that it will look too professional, and then you’re back to networking after Genesis 3. It’s a hard thing to balance, but if your motives for networking are pure, people will sense this and be glad to lend a hand.

8. Have a mock interview.
Having a mock interview proved to be one of the most helpful things I did during the job search—yet, as I’ll explain, also one of the least enjoyable.

When I was looking for my first pastoral job, I had participated in interviews many times before but never in the context of a local church. All my experience had been in the business world. There is some helpful overlap, but I can tell you, with certainty, that when I interviewed with engineering firms no one ever asked me to articulate the gospel or explain the Trinity. No one ever asked my opinion on whether all of the small groups in a local church should use the same curriculum or if each group should choose their own. And they didn’t want to know what spiritual gifts my wife had. They didn’t ask these kinds of questions. I needed practice at answering them—lots of practice.

This is why I’m so thankful one of the elders at my local church offered to create a mock interview for me. He recruited several other mature Christians at our church, and for about two hours on a Tuesday night in a classroom in the basement of our church, they grilled me. Then for another hour they gave me feedback.

It was miserable, absolutely miserable.

But why? Were they mean? Not at all. Were they unfair? Nope.

It was miserable because I thought I was good at interviewing but wasn’t. In other words, by miserable, I mean deeply humbling.

Invariably, my answers were too long, and at times, unrelated to the actual question at hand. I had a lot to learn. Likely, so do you. As humbling as the process was, I am so thankful for it. I’m thankful I had friends who cared about me enough to help prepare me for ministry, even if that meant giving some honest feedback.

Before you begin the interview phases of a job search, I highly encourage you to have a mock interview. The best people to conduct it are those in your church who’ve sat on search committees before and, perhaps, even have hiring responsibilities in their job. If you don’t have this, recruit some friends to do this for you. With a quick internet search you can find good interview questions so that those conducting the interview don’t have to do too much legwork. Regardless of how you get this done, I could not recommend it more.

9. Send the best samples of your work.
I recently had coffee cups made with our church logo on them. We give them to newcomers. But before I bought 300 coffee mugs, I asked the company that made them to send me a sample. This was helpful. It helped me make an informed decision. 

However, the company keeps sending me stuff: pens, water bottles, tote bags, and brochures—lots and lots of brochures. This has not been helpful.

Candidates can learn something from this. At the right time, and in the right amount, sending samples is helpful. But sending too many samples, or sending them at the wrong time is not helpful—in fact, it’s harmful.

Early in the hiring process, your cover letter is probably enough, but as the process continues, you’ll likely want to send a few of the best samples of things you have worked on. This does not mean you should send a complete series of handcrafted small group curriculum from the last five years. Don’t do that. But it might mean that you send your favorite lesson or two. That’s helpful.

If you are a worship leader, it might mean you send a sample of a devotional you lead your worship team through, or a few favorite worship sets with an explanation of why you enjoyed them so much. If you are in youth ministry, perhaps you have videos from events or mission trips or material from a favorite Wednesday night teaching series. If so, send them over.

Again, sending high-quality samples of your work, at the right time and in the right amount, is helpful. It’ll help you stand out from the crowd.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for three more tips. They’re important. Churches are full of hurting people, and God means to help them. These tips are an ambulance designed to get EMTs to the place where they can do what they’ve been trained to do.

[Photo by sv1ambo / CC BY]

More Tips for Getting the Right Job in Ministry, Part II of V

Recently, I’ve posted several articles designed to help pastoral candidates get the right job in a local church (1, 2, 3, and 4).

Over the next month or two, I will continue to unroll my remaining 12 tips (three tips at a time). Here are next three.

*     *     *

4. Get and send a recommendation letter.
My wife and I read books differently. Let’s just say that she has been known to skip a preface or two, and maybe even a few other pages along the way. I, on the other hand, won’t ever skip a page. I’m anal like that.

But there is, however, even for me, an exception to this rule. I never read the pages at the very front of a book titled “In praise of _________.” If you ask me, these pages aren’t even meant to be read, not closely. They are just there to make a point, namely, several well-known people think this book (or author) is hot stuff.

To me, a recommendation letter is sort of like that. They are nice to have because, at a glance, they give legitimacy to a candidate but, in my opinion, that’s about all. If you do decide to send one, however, and I’m not against it, here are a few ways to make the most of it.

First, realize that a reference letter doesn’t have to be from a Christian celebrity for it to be helpful. If John Piper or Rick Warren or Bill Hybels want to write you a recommendation letter, sweet. But don’t worry if they don’t. The other people applying for the job don’t have one either—probably.

It will likely be more helpful if you get a letter from a former supervisor or someone you oversaw (such as a small group leader you trained or a musician on your music team).

The most helpful letter, however, would be from someone who is already known by and has the respect of the church at which you are applying.

Recently, we hired a full-time youth and music director. He didn’t have a recommendation letter, but he did have on his reference list two men whom we already knew very well and greatly respected. Again, he just had these men as references, but each of them would have been great candidates for recommendation letters.

Second, if you don’t have someone famous to endorse you or someone who knows both you and the church, find someone interesting to write one for you.

When I was transitioning from a career in engineering to  one in pastoring, I asked one of my former pastors to write a recommendation letter. That’s not very interesting. But I also asked my Muslim engineering co-worker to write a recommendation letter. That is.

Obviously, my Muslim co-worker couldn’t speak to my preaching abilities or how well I could lead a small group; but, since we had worked closely on projects for several years, he was able to comment on my character and teamwork, and even how we had engaged each other in conversations about religion. Churches seemed to find his letter helpful. Not everyone has a Muslim co-worker, but if you do, or if you have someone like this, consider asking them to write a recommendation for you. They might do it.

Finally, don’t lead with your recommendation letter. Remember, you’re not hot stuff simply because you have one. When you send your information to a church put everything in this order: cover letter, resume, family bio, references, and, finally, the recommendation letter.

5. Keep track of everything.
The level of complexity of your job search will depend upon your context. If you are currently established in a ministry role, and only casually looking for a job, your search will likely not be too complex and you’ll manage it without much effort.

If, however, you are in a transition stage, say, about to graduate from seminary, then at some point in the job search, you’ll start to get overwhelmed. The job search may start simple but become complex quickly, and you’ll want to track everything before it gets there. At some point, you’ll forget which church you sent which piece of information, which church has a deadline coming up, and which church has a senior pastor that prefers to be called Steve, not Steven.

Let me give you an analogy. During the last year, I developed a food allergy that caused a lot of discomfort when I ate certain foods, and some days it even left me unable to work. I don’t know why this happened and I’m not happy about it, but it did happened. And to figure out what I’m allergic to, I had to track everything I ate for several months.

At first, I would convince myself that I could wait until the end of the day, or even wait several days, to record everything I had eaten. I thought this would be more efficient.

Big surprise: this doesn’t work. I always forgot the details.

It’s the same in the job search. You think you can keep track of it, but you can’t. Make a folder for every job, electronic or otherwise, and keep track of every interaction. Don’t wait a day or two. You’ll forget.

I recently went back and looked over the computer folder entitled “placement” from when I was preparing to graduate from seminary, and there were 17 different folders in it! Granted, some were threadbare because I only had one or two interactions with a church, but other folders were chalked full of details.

Additionally, along with folders, create a calendar (again, electronic or otherwise), to remind you of important deadlines and when you need to follow up with a church.

6. Know where to find job openings.
Having a professional resume, cover letter, family bio, references, and a recommendation letter makes for a good start. Yet, if you don’t know where to send them, you’re not going to get a job. Somehow you have to connect your information with the right employment opportunity.

But where do you find these opportunities?

Lots of places. Broadly speaking, here are a few of them.

Job Search Websites: As I’ve mentioned before, ChurchStaffing.com tends to be a good place to look, as it seems to be the most populated. (Note, their tagline is “The Site for Church Employment,” not “A Site for…”.) But there are others, for example, Church Staff Search or ChurchJobsOnline.com, but the quality goes down pretty quick after these. Something to keep in mind, though, is that the strength of these websites, at least ChurchStaffing.com, is also the challenge: lots of traffic. If you find a job you’re interested in, you’ll likely have to be aggressive. Additionally, The Slingshot Group and Vanderbloemen Search Group, which are primarily recruitment firms (i.e. headhunting firms), have job postings (here and here), and even The Gospel Coalition, a favorite organization of mine, has an online job board (here). You’ll have to look pretty hard to find it, but when you do, you’ll see it’s stuffed with opportunities.

Denominations: Often church denominations have resources for connecting candidates and churches. They have a vested interest in doing so. And when I say denominations, I have in mind official denominations such as the Presbyterian Church in America or the Southern Baptist Convention (see their respective job postings here and here). Yet, I also have in mind movements such as Harvest Bible Fellowship which now has over 100 churches and also posts jobs openings (see those here). I can’t speak with authority on every denomination or movement, but I can speak to my own, The Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). In our denomination, the country is broken up into 17 districts, each district with its own staff who, on average, resource just under 100 churches each. When, fresh out of seminary, I was looking for a job, I sent cover letters and resumes to someone in each district, and followed that up with a phone call. For me, this didn’t generate all that many leads, but I think if I had already been serving fulltime in an EFCA church, especially if had I already been ordained (and not fresh out of seminary), it would have opened up more doors.

Church Planting Networks: If you are interested in church planting, then you probably already know about organizations such as Acts 29, Converge Worldwide (formerly the Baptist General Conference), and Sovereign Grace. However, if not, you can read more about planting within in these organizations here, here, and here. And there are others. You’ll find them if you look.

Bible Colleges and Seminaries: Some of the best places to find jobs are through Bible colleges and seminaries. The upside to these is twofold. First, by virtue of each institution’s theological DNA, to some extent the theology of the churches posting has already been vetted. This is helpful to both you and the churches. Second, a church will often have one or more of the current staff who are positively biased to hiring candidates from their alma mater. There’s nothing wrong with this. For both candidate and church, the hiring process is a risk, and anything one can do to mitigate that risk, including connecting people who shared theology professors, is a good thing. The downside of finding jobs through Bible Colleges and Seminaries, however, is that often access is only granted to current students and alumni. Under certain circumstances, perhaps the gatekeeper would give you access, if, say for example, you graduated from another likeminded seminary and are currently looking to relocate to the city that the particular seminary is in. It’s hard to say, but you won’t know until you ask. To find this person, just call the seminary and ask to speak with the person overseeing placement.  

Other Ministry Organizations: I won’t list any specifics here, but likely every major mission agency, camp, and parachurch organization has their own job postings. I know that’s true for places like Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), and Gospel for Asia (see those here, here, and here).

Direct Marketing: And finally there is direct marketing. This is the most targeted approach, which means you are reaching out to a specific organization or church within a certain region. Yet, don’t get your hopes up since this is unlikely to be successful. If you have constraints, however, on the region, or even city, where you need to live then it might be worth a try.

[Photo by Jakob Nilsson-Ehle / CC BY]

9 Quotes from THE JOY PROJECT by Tony Reinke

Yesterday I rode my bike past a church sign that said,

Happiness is not
the absence of difficulties
but the presence of God.

Typically, church signs are nothing more than clichés and sentimentality. Blah. But this one is pretty good. Yet we must ask, “If happiness comes from God’s presence, how do we get God’s presence?”

Tony Reinke wrote The Joy Project: A True Story of Inescapable Happiness to answer this question. The book was released earlier this week, and you can download the book free of charge, in three digital formats, at desiringGod.org/thejoyproject.

The book explores—no, celebrates!—God’s mission to bring his children infinite joy. And it does so through the theological framework called Calvinism or the doctrines of grace or the acronym TULIP (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints). In fact, these five points serve as the scaffolding for the five central chapters of the book.

The Joy Project, however, is not a polemical fight. Rather, as I said above, it’s a celebration, and in this way it’s more in keeping with the Bible’s treatment of the subject—behold the beauty before bemoaning the controversies.

In the spring I read Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace by John Piper. It was a good book (and Reinke quotes from it a few times and Piper more than a few times), but I think The Joy Project is the book that I’d be more likely to give to the people in our church. I’m not saying it’s necessarily better, just perhaps more suited. 

Reinke wrote on his blog, “The Joy Project…fulfills of a dream of mine to write and publish a full book free of charge to the world.”

Thanks, Tony, for livin’ the dream. And thanks, Desiring God, for making it happen. And now may God use this book as a means to completing his joy project.

*     *     *

Below are a few of my favorite passages.

We conclude that the barriers to abiding joy are the unhealthy choices that clog our lives. The root problem, we think, is that we’re stuck in a rut of predictability and laziness, so we must unstick ourselves. We turn to self-improvement... We buy productivity apps for our phones. We resolve to become more “chill” parents, sexier spouses, better friend-winners, and more purposeful people-influencers. We need to sit less and walk more. We need to sleep more and eat less… We drink more water, less coffee, less soda. We buy organic, fair trade, rBGH-free, gluten-free, free-range. We pay off credit card debt and build our savings… We commit to staying on top of our e-mails, checking our phones less often, watching less television, visiting the library more, and reading our neglected stacks of books. (p. 2*)

Simply put, the driving motive in history is the desire for happiness. All sin, from slavery to prostitution to racism to terrorism to extortion to the sparks that ignite world wars—all are driven by a desire for happiness apart from God. (p. 13)

The greatest hazard we face is not intellectual atheism—denying that God exists. Our most desperate problem is affectional atheism—refusing to believe God is the object of our greatest and most enduring joy. This is the heart of our foolishness. The fool speaks from the depths of his affections and longings and declares: God is irrelevant (Ps. 14:1). (p. 13)

Even if we don’t feel them, the consequences are real. Our idols misshape our souls like drugs alter the facial features of a meth addict. Unlike a drug-ravaged face, whose degeneration can be captured by time-lapsed photos, we don’t see the drastic changes to our souls quite so readily, but this soul-distortion afflicts everyone who follows after the pleasures of sin. (p. 22)

We are dying sinners in desperate need of a spiritual double bypass surgery, but we spend our pocket change on double cheeseburgers. We get happy again with a momentary food buzz, but the temporary buzz is slowly killing us. (p. 25)

Left to ourselves, we are stuck in our total depravity. The centripetal force of our affections keeps us gazing at ourselves. We turn away from God for our joy, and turn toward all we have left: money, sex, power, personal affirmation, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and Instagram “likes.” We use these old technologies (and we will use new technologies in the future) to tabulate our approval and then to use those metrics of approval to compare our popularity with others. When we do, we trade authentic glory for residual sludge. It’s like drinking mud. And we choke. (p. 33)

The cross did not merely make salvation possible. The cross is not like a single who secures a wedding date and reserves an elegant church years before finding a mate, hoping they will find someone in the meantime. No, Christ’s death secured salvation for the elect individually, by name. In his death, Christ effectually pursues a bride by entering the brothel of idolatry to grab hold of the elect, one by one, by name, and pulling them out from the bondage of sin. (pp. 55-56)

Anticipating unending joy in the presence of Christ changes everything. It means we can relinquish control over our lives. It means we have no fear of the future. It means all our pressing toward personal holiness is not in vain. God elects so that we will be conformed to the image of Christ, in his holiness and in his happiness. It will be done, and we strive and obey in this inescapable hope. (p. 99)

But of course you and I know better than to say we found joy. Rather, joy found us—sometimes slowly, sometimes at warp speed. That is the story of TULIP. Calvinism is the story of a long-planned, sovereign joy that finds you before you even see it coming. (p. 121)

* All pages numbers from the PDF version.

#thejoyproject

[Photo by john mcsporran / CC BY]

Chipotle’s Super Short Book Report Sweepstakes

Ode to Chipotle

Just over 13 years ago (4,869 days to be exact), I fell in love—with Chipotle burritos. Their size, their shape, their spice: all of it.

Our first date was on May 25, 2002 in Fort Collins, CO, and I think every month since then, on average, I have enjoyed a chicken fajita burrito with corn salsa and some other garnishes. That’s around 160 burritos or $1,100 worth. If you prefer to measure in calories, that’s around 175,000 … but who’s counting?

The Competition

If you’ve been to Chipotle in the last week, you might have noticed that they are holding a competition. It’s related to the “cultivating thoughts” series which is displayed on the side of soda cups and to-go bags. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, imagine a short story or thoughtful reflection, say 300 words or so, by a popular author. These words stare at you while you eat just begging to be discussed.

Now, back to this competition. It’s called the “Super Short Book Report Sweepstakes.” To enter, you must write—you guessed it—a super short book report for one of the entries in the series. And when they say “super short,” they mean it: just 103 characters. Maybe you’d like to contribute your own report. You can do so here, but you’ll have to hurry. The competition ends tomorrow (9/23/2015).

Laura Hillenbrand’s Ode to Chocolate

I chose to respond to Laura Hillenbrand’s entry. She’s the author of Unbroken (which I reviewed here) and Seabiscuit … and now, as well, the short essay “Two-Minute Ode to Chocolate.”

In her Ode, Hillenbrand traces the global web of activity that must take place for her to enjoy a single square of chocolate. The Ode, in its entirety, goes like this:

It is the simplest ritual of my noondays: A square of dark chocolate, little larger than a postage stamp. For its minuteness, I savor it all the more, closing my eyes as it melts gently, generously, in my mouth, as softly exquisite as a kiss.

Always, I think, I am grateful. In my mind, I follow my chocolate to its beginnings. I see a drop of rain touching red soil, and beneath, a seed waking. Leaves reaching for sifted sunlight. Careful, sure hands unclasping fruit from limbs. A kind donkey pulling a laden wagon. Wise faces bent over an ocean of seeds, summoning sweet from bitter. Roads and rivers and cunning machines that bear the chocolate to me. Someone built that wagon; someone cut that road; someone labored under a beaded brow; someone heeded an inspiration; someone offered love. How wondrous is a world that brings such gifts.

In my little ritual I am connected to that sunshine, those hands, that river, the beautiful alchemy that unites so much in a square of chocolate. A drop of rain that falls on the other side of the world, in a place whose language I may never hear, becomes sweetness on my tongue, thankfulness in my heart, words spilling from my pen, and perhaps a thought, however fleeting, in the mind of whoever reads them.

We are none of us bereft, ever. We slumber in seas of gifts. To wake up to them, to follow their tributaries, is to traverse in every direction, yet always arrive at the same place: Gratitude. Awakening from my chocolate, I look about and wonder: Whose hands made this? To whom do I owe thanks for the song of a wren? For the warmth of a sweater, cool grass under bare feet, the joy of dogs playing, laughter, a whispered I love you, the scent of bread?

I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful.

What I Love about It

There is a lot that I love about these 319 words.

I love the concreteness: a square (not a piece) of dark chocolate (not just chocolate); a drop of rain (singular) touching red soil (not the earth or ground); leaves reaching (they are not passive, they reach) for sifted sunlight (sifted implies a forest above); and so on.

And I love the idea of ritual, a word she uses twice. The ancients would climb high mountains to worship, and some of us still do; Hillenbrand eats a postage stamp of dark chocolate.

And I love the way she invites us to view this universe of beneficent activity that is required for mass produced chocolate: seeds, rain, sun, a kind donkey pulling a laden wagon, and oh, speaking of the wagon, “someone built that wagon; someone cut that road; someone labored under a beaded brow.” Indeed they did.

And I love the frequent, but not overdone, alliterations (e.g. melts gently, generously… sifted sunlight… seeds, summoning sweet... Roads and rivers…).

So What’s Missing?

There are other things I love, but the essay is missing something, something important. Did you notice it? I tried to bring this out in the “super short book report” which I submitted to Chipotle for the competition.

Here’s what I wrote: 

LH’s ODE TO CHOC explores the many tributaries that bring us gifts but misses Who is at the headwaters.

I capitalized the “w” intentionally. I love Hillenbrand’s prose, but she simply stops short; she traces these tributaries eloquently around the globe to farmers and seeds and donkeys and red soil and even to the heavens for rain. But while she traces them “in every direction,” her gratitude arrives nowhere, like a perpetual road trip without a destination. Hillenbrand explores the rivers but never to their source—even while asking all the right questions:

I look about and wonder: Whose hands made this? To whom do I owe thanks for the song of a wren? For the warmth of a sweater, cool grass under bare feet, the joy of dogs playing, laughter, a whispered I love you, the scent of bread?

Yes, she concludes with the right response, a tri-fold statement of gratitude: “I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful.” But are we so wrong to ask, “Grateful to whom?”

Hillenbrand doesn’t answer her rhetorical questions, but the Bible does. James writes, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:16-17).

Perhaps her statement, “How wondrous is a world that brings such gifts,” would be better written, “How wondrous is the God who gives such gifts.”

The Gospel Heals our Misplaced Gratitude

Look, I love Chipotle, I love chocolate, and I love authors who use words well. I’m thankful for these gifts, and a billion others, but what happens when we don’t locate our gratitude where we ought to? What happens if, like Hillenbrand, we don’t thank the right person?

Consider a student who received a full scholarship to college from a generous donor. Sure, this student should be thankful towards the school and the professors, the authors of his textbooks, the factory workers that produced them, and the trees that became paper. Of course, the student should be grateful for these. But at some point, you ought to thank the person who paid for your scholarship, the one who made the whole experience possible.

But my analogy is not strong enough; what if the person who gave the scholarship was also responsible for the knowledge of the professors and the production of the textbooks and the forests of trees and the rain that waters them and the workers and machines that cultivate them?

Now we are back at the central issue: ultimate gratitude to the One ultimately responsible.

Hillenbrand speaks of how “we slumber in seas of gifts,” but we might press the metaphor further: we are dead, and need more than the smelling salts of gratitude to awake us; we need resurrection.

That’s why I also love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the gospel because God provides a way for sinners who misplace their gratitude to be forgiven, and for forgiven sinners to know Who is at the headwaters drenching us in delight.

#ssbrsweepstakes, [Photo]

More Tips for Getting the Right Job in Ministry, Part I of V

Recently, I posted several articles designed to help pastors find the right job in a local church (1, 2, and 3). I hope you’re not tired of them yet because there’s still more to be said.  

Over the next month or two, I have 15 more tips that I plan to share in subsequent blog posts (three tips at a time). Here are the first three. Stay tuned for the rest.

*     *     *

1. Pray without ceasing.
Many people know that the shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” But this is only the shortest in English Bibles; this verse is actually three words in Greek, edakrusen o iēsous.

The shortest verse in the Bible, in the original languages, comes from 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing.” That’s three words in English, but in Greek it’s only two, adialeiptōs proseuchesthe.

Now this is mostly just silly Bible trivial, but the point I’m leading up to isn’t; Paul’s point isn’t trivial in the least. As Paul ends this letter to the church in Thessalonica, he does so by reminding the church of the gospel. He writes, “For God has not destined [Christians] for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ…” (5:9).

And after this gospel reminder, he then gives a host of short, but important commands related to how Christians should live in light of the gospel message. One of these commands is to “pray without ceasing.”

As you look for a job, because you are a Christian who has not been “destined for wrath,” but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, you ought to be someone who prays—someone who prays without ceasing to the God who saved you. This doesn’t mean that Christians don’t do other things besides pray. Of course we do. But it does means in and around, before and after, and throughout everything we do, we pray.

In the job search, it will be easy to overlook this kind of persistent prayer, even neglect it. There will be plenty of other things to do: make cover letters and resumes; collect references and recommendations; research websites, both church websites and job boards; build a network of people who will help you along the way; prepare for interviews; and so on. In the midst of all these tasks, there will always be pressure to do “just one more thing.” Consequently, prayer can easily fall by the wayside. Don’t let it.

We are always dependent and desperate people—dependent upon God and his grace, and thus desperate for him to move on our behalf. Sometimes we feel our dependence more acutely than at other times, but it’s always there. Prayer acknowledges this dependence, and it is the God-appointed outlet, or channel, for our desperate need.

And when you feel the most overwhelmed and the job search looks anything but promising, you don’t have to pray alone. Get some friends to join you. Just make sure you do it. And besides, if you don’t depend upon God when finding a job in ministry you’ll likely not depend upon him once you’re in ministry, and that begs the question whether or not you should be in ministry at all.

You see, prayer doesn’t “work” because God is a giant piñata and prayer is the stick that whacks him until he gives us goodies. Prayer works because God is gracious and good, and because he is sovereign.

This leads to my next tip.

2. Trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God.
When looking for a job, it’s imperative that you keep a vibrant trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God.

But perhaps you’re thinking,

The “goodness and sovereignty of God”? Benjamin, I thought you were going to give me lots of juicy tips for finding a job in Christian ministry. Now you’re going all Mr. Systematic Theologian on me. Where’s the practical stuff?

Here’s the deal: there will likely be low moments during the job search and hiring process, very low moments. There were for me. To make it through these moments, you’re going to have to commit yourself now, before the low moments, to the belief that God is good and he is in control.

Consider what you’ll do if a church you really like, maybe even the one that you think could be the perfect fit, says, “No thanks.”

What are you going to do?

And consider what you will do if this same church does something worse; what if they say nothing at all—silence. No returned calls, emails, letters—either because they lost your resume or because they were not considerate enough to close the loop.

Or maybe, at some point, you’ll realize that you have to take “that list”—you know, the list you made of the details about your dream job in your dream city with your dream church—and you’ll find yourself throwing it in the trash. You’ll throw it away because the job search has become so difficult and the rejections so frequent that you no longer care about finding your dream job; you just want a job.

Or maybe this will happen. Maybe you do get a job, even a good job, but when you move to the new city, your old house doesn’t sell—for another 18 months. Now all of your savings are gone and you’re not sure if you should sell your car. Then, to make things more difficult, the role you were promised at the new church doesn’t turn out to be exactly what you expected, or even what they expected.

I’m not making this list up. These things can happen. (They all happened to me!)

Yet God has his purposes for these times as well, even though it may feel like he’s trying to shake you, or even break you. As Tim Keller writes in his book Counterfeit Gods, “Sometimes God seems to be killing us when he’s actually saving us” (p. 20).

I think when we as Christians sing about the faithfulness of God (e.g. the classic hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” or a host of contemporary songs that major on this theme), what we are singing about are primarily two things:  the goodness and sovereignty of God.

God is good in that he never does evil or ultimate harm to his children. This is a wonderful thing, but if he were not also sovereign, his goodness wouldn’t be much help to us because he couldn’t act upon it; in other words, without sovereignty, God’s goodness would just be a platitude. But he is sovereign.

Sovereignty is having absolute control over everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in the future. God has this type of sovereignty. Scripture tells and shows us this.

We can see it in the overall narrative of the Bible, namely, the overarching story of a sovereign God acting in history—across all nations and generations—through the smallest of details that he governs (such as a fish swallowing a coin) as well as the largest of details (such as the geopolitics at work in the book of Jeremiah).

And we can see God’s sovereignty explicitly affirmed in Scripture in many verses. For example, consider just this one verse from 2 Chronicles: “O Lord, God of our fathers… you rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you” (20:6).

It’s true that for some people, the goodness and sovereignty of God is primarily a thing of controversy. But I hope that before these doctrines are controversial to you, they are beautiful to you. Because it’s only a vibrant, gospel-empowered trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God that will sustain you in the low moments… and it’s also what will fill you with humble gratitude in high moments.

3. Speak to former employees.
Okay, after all this deep stuff on prayer and God’s sovereignty, let me end with something a little lighter.

You won’t always be able to, nor will you always want to, but it won’t hurt to ask the church (or organization) if you can speak to former employees.

And when you do speak to them, you might ask questions like these:

What were your favorite things about working at the church? Least favorite?
If you feel comfortable saying, what were the circumstances for your departure?
Would you work there again? Why or why not?

Also, if you know former employees are still in the area, you might want to know if they plan to still attend the church or not. This is especially helpful to ask of a former senior pastor. You’ll want to know if the guy who planted the church and pastored it for 25 years is still living down the street and showing up on Sundays in the front row. The shadow of this pastor’s leadership will be strong enough as is, and to have him still among the church could potentially be divisive.

And as you speak with a former employee, be as discerning as you can. Remember, he or she is likely a former employee—not a current employee—for a whole matrix of reasons including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

If at any point the person is hesitant to answer specific questions, and you are unsure why, perhaps you could just say something like this: “If you were me, what questions should I be asking the church before I committed to them?” This allows the former employee to offer suggestions of things you can pursue together without the former employee having to spell out all the issues.

Okay, that’s it for this post. Stay tuned for 12 more tips. Oh, and be sure to leave me a comment below if you have a tip that you think should be included.

[Photo by peasap / CC BY]

More Than Amnesty

Neither every moment nor every aspect of pastoral ministry enthralls. However, I am convinced—through the study of the Word and pastoral life within the local church—that every endeavor to promote connection between God and his people is nothing short of participation in God’s intention for the universe.

Said another way: laboring towards genuine, God-besotted, gospel-community is laboring with the grain of the universe, not against it. And because this is true, our labors to cultivate this type of community are always deeply meaningful, whether we palatably perceive it in every moment or not.

Furthermore, in my experience, as summertime ends and the school year begins, people tend to be more inclined to involve themselves in this type of genuine, God-besotted, gospel-community in a local church. They sign up to serve in the nursery; they join the worship team; they commit to a small group Bible study. 

This year, in order to celebrate the beauty of these commitments and the reconciliation which was hard-won for us by Jesus Christ, I reworked a poem I wrote a few years ago. It’s called, “More Than Amnesty.”

Amnesty means one group has pardoned another group of wrongdoing. But amnesty doesn’t necessarily mean the two groups are now reconciled, and it certainly does not imply that they are friends; it merely means they are neutral.

In the gospel, we have far more than amnesty. Yes, God has pardoned, but the sacrificial death of the Son of God does not bring us into a neutral relationship with God, a merely pardoned relationship.

Rather, through the gospel, we are reconciled with God; we are made his friends; we become beloved sons and beloved daughters of God. That is more than amnesty. And this is what we were made for.

May God stir deeper longings in our hearts for this type of genuinely God-besotted, gospel-community. And may God enable our churches to make greater progress towards it.

*     *     *

More Than Amnesty

In God’s likeness with no shame
Eve and Adam rule and reign
Stretching glory ‘cross the earth
‘til they doubted God’s great worth

Now scorched and frayed and fractured
Father’s connection shattered
Like concrete cracked with hammer
Change Garden’s bliss to clamor

A willful grab for power
Caused Paradise to sour
Now a fire guarded gate
None will circumnavigate

So flounder, flop, flail—long years
Try to fix, yet smudge and smears
To sin’s shackles bondage bound
With no way by man yet found

But wait, but wait, oh—but wait
upon us no crushing weight
Now the curse of sin undone
By the beauty of the Son

More than our forgiven debt
We have deepest longings met
More, more, more than amnesty
A blood adhered family

Restored, redeemed, reconciled
Children no longer exiled
Now, the Father holds us dear
“I will be your God,” we hear

[Photo by Christopher Michel / CC BY]

TAKING GOD AT HIS WORD by Kevin DeYoung (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Kevin DeYoung. Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2014. 144 pp. $17.99.

You Had Me at Hello

I once heard John Piper say, “Books don’t change people, paragraphs do—sometimes sentences.”

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I loved all of Kevin DeYoung’s book, Taking God At His Word, but one paragraph was especially lovable. As I begin this review, I’ll start with it.

The paragraph comes from the introduction. I had actually read a portion of the paragraph on a blog around a year ago when the book was first published. I loved it then, but now even more after seeing it in  context, i.e. the context of DeYoung’s discussion of the longest chapter in the Bible—Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem that gives one stanza to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet creating 176 verses. And what’s the topic of this Psalm? The Bible.

Here is the paragraph that so moved me:

Think of this chapter [the Introduction] as application and the remaining seven chapters of this book as the necessary building blocks so that the conclusions of Psalm 119 are warranted.

Or, if I can use a more memorable metaphor, think of [chapters] 2 through 8 as seven different vials poured into a bubbling cauldron and this chapter as the catalytic result. 

Psalm 119 shows us what to believe about the word of God, what to feel about the word of God, and what to do with the word of God. That’s the application. That’s the chemical reaction produced in God’s people when we pour into our heads and hearts the sufficiency of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, and everything else we will encounter in the remaining seven chapters.

Psalm 119 is the explosion of praise made possible by an orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture. When we embrace everything the Bible says about itself, then—and only then—will we believe what we should believe about the word of God, feel what we should feel, and do with the word of God what we ought to do. (14, emphasis added)

There are several things in particular which stand out to me in this paragraph, but I’ll just mention two.

1. The Author of Psalm 119 was Orthodox and Evangelical

First, I’ll start with my favorite line: “Psalm 119 is the explosion of praise made possible by an orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture.” I love this anachronism because it’s not really an anachronism at all.

We often (wrongly) think of our particular hermeneutical approach to Scripture as something we created, rather than the attempt to have the same hermeneutical approach to Scripture that Scripture has to itself. What I mean is this: I love that this quote reminds me that an “orthodox and evangelical doctrine of Scripture” is not something fabricated by moderns, but rather is the very view of the original authors. What a great reminder that when we, as evangelicals, put supreme confidence in Scripture, we are not putting more confidence in Scripture than the Psalmist had… or for that matter, more confidence than the apostle Peter had (see pg. 34)… or Jesus had (see pg. 110ff).

Scoffers and cynics would not write Psalm 119. The indifferent, ho-hum, and lukewarm would not either. But those with an orthodox, evangelical, and high view of Scripture would—indeed, did. Those who love the Bible’s sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity experience a chemical reaction in the heart which tends to produce an “explosion of praise.”

2. How Then Shall We Feel?

In Taking God At His Word, I also appreciated DeYoung’s challenge that the Bible does not merely provide us with what we are “to believe” and “to do”—albeit very important things. DeYoung, both in the above paragraph and the rest of the chapters, also puts stress, as does the Bible, on how we are “to feel” about the Word.

And it’s here that we find an often underrepresented emphasis in books about Scripture—but certainly not in Psalm 119. The author of Psalm 119 does not feel neutral about Scripture. He feels passionately about it. He loves God’s Word (vv. 48, 97, 119, 127, 140), he delights in God’s Word (vv. 14, 24, 70, 143, 174), and he longs to keep God’s Word (vv. 5, 10, 17, 20, 40, 131); he even expresses anger when people don’t (vv. 48, 97, 119, 127, 140). And the Psalmist urges us to feel this same passion.

Engagement with Dissenters

Before wrapping up my review, I want to give space to one of the book’s chief strengths. DeYoung has a wonderful, skillful way of articulating and then critiquing opposing views of the Bible—views which tend to bleed the Bible of its life giving power, rather than transfuse it to us.

For example, although he avoids the technical name, he aptly engages the “documentary hypothesis” (104-5). Contra the evangelical view, the documentary hypothesis is the view that Moses did not write the Pentateuch to the Israelites while in the wilderness, with, of course, a few small editorial updates that came later (like the one about Moses’s death). Rather, the documentary hypothesis teaches that whole teams of people wrote these books over several centuries and often from divergent theological convictions.

DeYoung notes, “This [complicated, cynical questioning of authorship] is part and parcel of what seems plain to so much modern scholarship, but it isn’t even remotely connected to anything we see from Jesus in the way he handled the Old Testament” (105).

This is a great example of DeYoung’s ability to both articulate and critique opposing views. Here’s another. On pages 65ff, he analyzes the false humility of those who say:

We can’t put God in a box. We can’t define him with human language. If we could define him with our words, then he wouldn’t be God anymore. Scripture simply gives us one inspired record of human beings trying to describe mysteries that are beyond mere words and language. (65)

This sounds “nice, even noble,” but it smuggles in all sorts of false assumptions about the Bible. And besides, as DeYoung notes, the doctrines of the clarity of Scripture and Christian epistemology, are not only related to the Bible but our view of God.

When we say that we believe the word of God is clear (with all the necessary nuances, of course), we are saying something about God, namely, that he is able to communicate with clarity. And when Christians say that we can actually know God through his Word (our epistemology), we are really saying something about God, namely, that God is able to make himself known through his Word.

Recommendation

Throughout the rest of the book, DeYoung covers the four main, historical doctrines about the Word (it’s sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity), as well as fitting in a few other related chapters.

As I hope you have already sensed, far from being merely academic and aloof, the book remains warm and doxological, that is to say, the book stirs an “explosion of praise” in readers, at least this reader. Moreover, for those who want to pursue other books about the Bible but feel unsure of where to start, at the end of the book, DeYoung provides an annotated bibliography of what he calls, “30 of the best books on the Good Book.”

If you are presently unfamiliar with DeYoung, he is a young, prolific, and impacting author. He writes a popular blog hosted on The Gospel Coalition. Yet, DeYoung’s greatest strength is that he’s a master at taking difficult theological concepts and presenting them in ways that are clear, compelling, and faithful to Scripture. Time and again DeYoung brings clarity to the topics he engages. In so doing, he hits his stated target, “My aim is to be simple, uncluttered, straightforward, and manifestly biblical.”

And, in Taking God at His Word, he is. I highly recommend it.

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101 Questions a Pastoral Candidate Can Ask in the Hiring Process

One of the most important things a candidate can do during the hiring process is ask good questions—lots and lots of good questions. Asking questions allows candidates a better understanding of what they are getting into with a potential church, and it also shows the church that potential candidates are truly interested, that they are taking the job, and all of its entailments, seriously.

In fact, asking good questions might determine whether or not you get the job, or it might determine whether the job you finally get is the one you actually want. A pastor recently told me this was true for him—that one reason he did not get a job was, in part, because another candidate asked so many more questions than he did. Ultimately, it became clear that that particular church wouldn’t have been the right fit for him anyway; but, he explained how thankful he was that the church which didn’t hire him actually cared enough to give him this feedback since he was then able to learn and ask more questions in his next interview—the interview with the church at which he now pastors and has proven a great fit for him.

If you need some ideas to get started, below are 101 questions you can ask a local church. And if you are looking for a job in Christian ministry, but not one necessarily in a local church, they are questions, with a little modifying, which you might ask of a parachurch ministry, organizations like Fellowship of Christians Athletes, Young Life, or a local rescue mission.

Some of the questions I created from scratch, others I adapted, and still others have been asked of me by candidates as they looked for a job. I organized them by categories so that they are easier to use (e.g. General, Theology & Practice, Church Health & Planning, etc.). However, before I list them, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, not every question is the right question for you to ask. Some won’t work at all, but others, with a slight tweak, can be fitted to your context (i.e. your particular church or organization; your particular role; your particular experience; etc.).

Second, and I hope this is obvious, the goal isn’t to ask every question. That would be painful—for both church and candidate. The goal, rather, is to pick a few that seem appropriate for that stage of the interview process (whether the beginning or middle or end), and to ask those. For example, early on you might ask questions such as, “What are some hobbies among the staff?” and “What are the expectations for a pastor’s spouse?” Then, later in the process, ask about putting the compensation package into writing. If you switch the order, at best you could seem cold and insensitive to the process. At worst, you might not make it to the next round of interviews where you could have asked the more difficult questions.

Finally, as you look at the list, also keep in mind that certain questions must be addressed to certain people. Some questions are better for the search committee, some for other staff members, some for people in the congregation, and others for the elders. For example, don’t ask the current staff if there are problems or if someone on staff needs to be terminated. (Please tell me you know not to do this!) However, if you’re a senior pastor, it is a question you might ask the elders near the end of the process.

*     *     *

General

1.             Can you give me a 3-4 minute history of the church?

2.             How long have you been planning to fill this position?

3.             What are the circumstances that created the need for this role?

4.             What is the sequence and timeline of the hiring process?

5.             When do you expect to call references?

6.             When do you hope to have someone in place?

7.             How many candidates are still in the running?

8.             As I read the job description, I’m wondering how much time you expect to be allotted to the various items listed. Could you help me understand what a typical week might look like?

9.             If I am called to your church and it turns out to be a great fit, after a year or so, what sort of things would make you say, “Wow, this is a great fit”?

10.         What (if anything) made my resume, application stand out? Why do you think I will help this church?

11.         In what ways (if at all) do you think my age might affect my reception both in the church and among the leadership?

12.         May I have an unofficial visit to your church to see what things are like before the official interview/candidating weekend?

13.         Your website states ____________. What does that mean?

14.         How does a person move from “random attend-er” at your church, to member, and then to leader?

15.         If “exciting things” were happening at your church (and they likely are), what would they be?

16.         What are some of the hobbies of the other staff? What do you do for fun?

17.         May I have a copy of a recent newsletter? Church bulletin? Financial statement? Congregational meeting minutes?

18.         Does your church have a policy manual? May I have a copy?

19.         Please describe your worship style. What are some of the congregations favorite worship songs?

20.         How would you evaluate a successful worship service?

21.         What qualities did you appreciate about the person who had this role previously?

22.         In which ways are you similar to other churches in your community? In which ways are you different?

23.         Do people in the community, generally speaking, have a positive or negative view of your church?

24.         What ministries in your church seem to be most successful? Why?

25.         When did the most recent round of new members join?

26.         What do visitors often comment on?

27.         Who is responsible for putting together orders of service?

28.         Who is responsible for the website?

29.         Does your church have expectations for pastors regarding social media?

30.         This is hard to predict, but about how many weddings and funerals might this pastor be expected to officiate in the next year?

31.         What missionaries and parachurch organizations does your church support?

Theology & Practice

32.         What is the church government structure?

33.         Does the church have a statement of faith? How was it created? Is it ever re-worked? If so, what is the process?

34.         Does your church haven an official position on the end times? Or on God’s sovereignty and human responsibility? Or the charismatic spiritual gifts? The age of the earth? Alcohol? Divorce and remarriage?

35.         What is the church’s view of male and female roles?

36.         How is baptism practiced at your church (frequency, format, who leads, who can participate)?

37.         How is communion practiced at your church (frequency, format, who leads, who can participate)?

38.         Are you open to making changes to how baptism and communion are practiced?

39.         Let’s say I move there and my neighbor wants to check out our church. He is gay. What will his experience be like? Or what would you hope it to be?

40.         Does your church have a favorite Bible translation? Do you prefer one to preach from?

41.         How do you prefer to preach/teach the Bible: topically, book studies, another method?

42.         If a pastor at your church was asked to officiate a wedding, can you see him or her ever saying no? What circumstances might legitimately bring that about?

43.         What doctrines excite the leaders of your church? What doctrines do you prefer to avoid?

44.         How would you counsel a person who accepts Christ but remains in a sinful lifestyle?

45.         Are there particular authors and pastors that you admire? Who?

46.         What theological trends, broadly speaking, create concern among your church and leaders?

47.         How is church discipline practiced? Can you give me a few examples?

Church Health & Planning

48.         May I please have a copy of the annual budget and some information on monthly giving from the last year?

49.         How many attend your church each week?

50.         What is the total church membership vs. regular attendance?

51.         Do you have a small group ministry? If so, how many people are currently in small groups?

52.         If it was decided that more people could be reached for Christ by changing the name of the church, would you be open to that?

53.         Do you own your church building/property?

54.         What are the limiting factors to growth with respect to facilities (e.g., parking, sanctuary size, class rooms, other)?

55.         Is there adequate funding in the church budget for your leaders and staff to accomplish the tasks placed before them?

56.         Where do you see the Spirit of God working in your church?

57.         Have any former staff members left the ministry? May I contact them?

58.         Are there regular times of prayer among the staff?

59.         What mechanisms are in place to help the staff avoid burnout?

60.         What are the demographics of your church? How reflective are they of the local community?

61.         If your church continued to grow for the next 5 years, what changes would do you anticipate?

62.         In regard to ministry style, can you give an illustration of another church that you are trying to model this church after?

63.         What ways do you see teamwork taking place among the staff?

64.         In which areas would you say your church is “understaffed”?

65.         How long have the other employees worked here?

66.         Besides calling a pastor, what other items are top priorities in the next year?

67.         Has the interim period been healing? In what ways?

Leadership, Structure, & Conflict

68.         What has been the most controversial thing in your church during the last year?

69.         What issues have regularly caused friction in this church? Among staff? Among the elder board?

70.         Do you have weekly staff meetings? If so, what do they look like?

71.         What is your church polity? Are there elders, deacons, ministry leaders, etc.? How do they relate to each other?

72.         What is the relationship of a staff pastor to the elder board and congregation from the perspective of authority and structure? Does your church have an organizational chart? Is so, may I see it? If not, could you explain it to me?

73.         Is this church affiliated with a larger movement or denomination? If no, what are some means and methods to cultivate healthy, structural accountability?

74.         To what extent are the non-staff elders involved in the planning of sermons and sermon series?

75.         Can you recount a time of church conflict that resulted in a form of discipline?

76.         Have you had to let someone go in the last two years? If so, what were the circumstances?

77.         What current leaders in your church, staff or non-staff, are considered indispensable? Why?

78.         What happened to the previous pastor or staff person in this role? What were the circumstances for their departure? May I contact them? What are they doing now?

79.         How many previous staff members have been terminated? What were the circumstances for their departure?

80.         If you could go back and change how a situation was handled in the last year, what would it be and why? What would you do differently?

81.         Are there issues among the current staff that once the new hire arrives, will need to be addressed? Or are there even staff members that will need to be (potentially) terminated by the new hire?

82.         How is the annual budget prepared and approved? Who is responsible for keeping spending in line with the budget?

Family

83.         What are the expectations for my spouse?

84.         What roles do the spouses of other staff at the church play?

85.         What are the expectations for my children?

86.         How many nights a week do you expect the person who is hired to be away from home?

87.         If my children were to attend a youth group at a neighboring church, would that be a problem?

88.         If I had a Christmas party (with neighbors, friends, church people) and alcohol was served, would that be an issue?

89.         Among families with children, is there a particular mode of education most common (public school, home school, private school, Christian school)? Is it an expectation?

90.         Is there a certain proximity to the church that, though unspoken and unwritten, the pastor should live?

Money & Job Performance Reviews

91.         Do you do performance reviews at the end of each year? If so, what do they look like?

92.         Can you please write up the salary package (including things like salary; health, life, and disability insurance; health savings account; continuing education and conference money; money for ministry “tools” such as books and computer software; cell phone; moving expenses; vacation; retirement; contribution to FICA; etc.)?

93.         Is there a church parsonage? If so, and if the candidate desired not to use it, would compensations be adjusted accordingly?

94.         If in 3 years I felt called to pursue an advanced educational degree (perhaps an MDiv or DMin or something else), how would that be received? What support, if any, could I expect from the church?

95.       Does your church have a sabbatical policy? If so, what is it? If not, would you be open to creating one?

96.       Does the congregation have a policy of reviewing the pastor’s salary package each year?

97.         How will success be measured, formally or informally? And by whom? And how often?

98.         If I have to move to take this position, what, if any, moving costs are covered?

99.         What are the time expectations in the areas of preaching/teaching, counseling, visitation, office hours?

100.      Is there any allowance for a pastor preaching/teaching “away,” whether at another church, a conference, a seminary, or somewhere else? If so, what support might a pastor receive for this (e.g., help with travel expenses, time to work on the messages)?

101.      The question of who “owns” the material produced by pastors (sermons, curriculum, etc.), is a complex issue. Some feel it belongs to the pastor because he or she is technically self-employed (per tax code). Others feel that the church owns everything in the same way that when a business hires a consultant, at the end of the day, the business owns the work produced by the consultant. Have you thought about this before? Do you have an opinion about this? Would you be open to a discussion about it?

[Photo by Bernal Saborio / CC BY]

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RELATED POSTS

13 Tips for Pastoral Candidates in the Initial Hiring Process, Part II of II

[This Part II of II; for Part I, click here]

Getting a job in Christian ministry is difficult and time-consuming. This is true whether you are applying for a job at a church doing a large, national search or whether you are applying for a job through your network of friends and ministry contacts, and thus competing against a much smaller pool of candidates (or no other candidates at all). Regardless, it’s hard work. But if you are serious about finding the right job, here are a few more tips to help you during the initial phase of the hiring process. (For “tips” 1-6, click here.)

7. Only send PDFs (not Microsoft Word documents).
Never send your information in Microsoft Word documents (or the Mac equivalent). You can’t control how it will look on another person’s computer screen. You can, however, control how a PDF looks. When I’ve been on search committees, every time I’ve looked at a resume with messed up formatting, it’s proved a distraction. Look, if you spend time getting the formatting perfect, especially on the resume—which typically has difficult spacing—don’t assume the person getting your email has the same version of Word. Rather, send it as a PDF to protect your hard work. If you do not know how to save as a PDF, Google it or ask someone for help. Don’t be lazy with this. It’s important.

8. Only send one attachment.
If you’ve paid close attention so far, then you realize that you’ll be sending several documents—a cover letter, resume, bio with picture(s), references, and possibly even a recommendations. That’s a bunch of documents.

However, do not send an email with a bunch of attachments! Multiple attachments are the pits, especially for the person who is receiving these emails. And there’s a good chance he or she could accidentally not print one of them or not staple or paperclip them together. As I said above, your one attachment should be a PDF.

But you might be asking, “What if each of the documents is in a different Word document—how do I make them one PDF?” This is not a problem. Save each as a PDF and then merge them into one PDF. If you don’t own a program that can do this, you can use one for free here.

9. Send from your personal email account.
Whatever you do, do not send all of this information through the mechanism provided by some job-search websites, such as ChurchStaffing.com, even if that feels like an easy button to press. As a candidate you might not realize this, but when you send your info in this way the final product looks lousy. Instead, try to look up the church’s website to see if the job is posted there. If so, follow those instructions on who to email. Related to this, don’t have a cheesy email address. For example, don’t haveIAmSoOnFireForJesus@aol.com. And I’d suggest not using your student or current work email, as well. This is true for multiple reasons, but mainly because people might try to contact you after you have left your current school or employer but won’t be able to. Therefore, what you want is an email that will stay with you after you leave. If you don’t have an email like this, just create one at Gmail with your first and last name.

10. If you are in a different country, work extra hard. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when my previous church hired people, we posted the jobs on all of the major websites and our favorite seminaries. And each time we received a dozen or more resumes from people out of the country, and almost every time, what these people sent looked sketchy. I have no idea if the people applying were actually sketchy or not—but it was difficult to tell.

If you are applying for a job not in your own country, please know that you have a massive hurdle to overcome, even if only from a financial standpoint on the church that hires you (i.e. it will cost more to fly you in for the interview and to move you). That’s not to say you won’t have much to offer. In fact, you probably do, especially by way of perspective.

Here are a few tips to overcoming this hurdle. First, have someone from the country you are trying to move to look over your material before you send it. Second, if you have references in the country you are trying to move to, put them down. And if you have worked in that country before, or have education there, highlight that as well.

11. Make the follow-up phone call.
If you like the job, after you send your email, call the church to tell them. In fact, I’m tempted to say you should call even if the paper says “don’t call.” I say this because you want to stand out. The search team could be reading two hundred packets and when they come to yours, you want them to have heard from someone, maybe the church secretary, “Hey, this guy called a few days ago and sounded really nice.”

When you make the call, don’t do what I did once. I was so excited about the job, so excited to tell the search team or the receptionist or the pastor or whoever answered the phone that, when someone did, I rambled and mumbled and paused awkwardly because I hadn’t thought through what to say beforehand. Don’t do this. I ended up getting that job, but afterwards, they had a good laugh with me (or was it at me) about it. Here’s what you want to do: know what you are going to say on the call and then keep it short and sweet. You are just saying a quick hello to let them know how interested you are and what specifically attracted you about the job and church. If you want, you might even ask a question, such as “Why do you love your church so much?”

12. Stay positive regarding previous job transitions.
When writing or speaking about previous transitions, keep them positive. I’m not saying you should lie. Don’t do that. If the church is any good, when the time comes they will ask for more details. What I am talking about is in the initial stages choose to stress the positive reasons that you are looking for a job. For example, if part of why you are leaving your current church is because there was a change in the senior leadership and you no longer fit in as well, don’t go into all of that on your cover letter. Anytime there is a transition, we all assume—or should assume—there were reasons. It won’t help anyone involved if you complain about it, especially in the initial contact.

13. Be intentional on your social media, blog, and website.
Finally, as soon as you begin to contemplate a transition, only post content online with this potential transition in mind. As soon as anyone takes you seriously as a candidate, they will Google you, and when they do, they will follow the online breadcrumbs to your social media, and if you have them, your blog and website.

Think about this every time you post something. If you are inclined to post to Facebook pictures of the steak dinner that you are about eat, that’s probably fine. But if you are given to posting links about your love for the Tea Party or, on the other end, how awesome Keith Olbermann is, scale it back. And if you tend to re-tweet people with theological differences than you in order to mock them, don’t. I follow a guy on Twitter who does this, and I enjoy it. He’s good at it, but he’s in a role where it makes sense. You’re probably not.

The general principle is this: anything that you don’t want a search committee to see, don’t post. Remember, the search team doesn’t get your inside jokes. They weren’t there that one time when… Responsible online participation should be true all of the time, simply because you are a Christian, especially a Christian pursuing full-time ministry, but it’s worth the reminder when looking for a job.

[Part II of II; for Part I, click here]

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13 Tips for Pastoral Candidates in the Initial Hiring Process, Part I of II

People often say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. While that’s true, it’s also true that in many job searches, if you don’t make a good first impression, you’ll never even get a chance to make a second.

With this in mind, when I was looking for my first pastoral job, I knew the initial contact would be important. However, I wasn’t ready for what I experienced.

After I sent my resume and cover letter to one church, I called to see how the process was going and to let them know I was interested. The kind woman who answered the phone said, “It’s so nice of you to call. The search is going great.” When I asked how many people had applied, she said, “I think it’s up to 300.”

A few weeks later, I applied to another church, and in that search, I later found out I was one of 600 candidates from 11 different countries! See what I mean. If you don’t start strong in this process, you might be a great candidate, but they are moving on—without you.

Now, I’m several years removed from these experiences. Now, I can say (both as a candidate and someone who has been on pastoral-search committees), that the size of those searches is on the high-end. But they are not unheard of, especially for the large church that puts a well-crafted job description on major websites, such as ChurchStaffing.com.

Below are 13 tips to help candidates differentiate themselves from the dozens—and maybe hundreds—of other candidates in the early stages of a pastoral job search.

1. Always include a short, cover letter.
Include a cover letter with each submission. Much of your cover letter can be boilerplate (this is who I am; this is where I worked; this is where I went to school; this is where you can listen to my sermons; this is what I’m passionate about and why you should hire me; blah, blah, blah). But, you should definitely tailor at least one paragraph to demonstrate two things: first, that you actually read the job description, and second, why you think you would be a good fit. To do this, make sure you spend time on the church’s website. Perhaps you can even comment on something on their church calendar, or some connection you have to their particular city or state, if you have one. But don’t get wordy; your cover letters should be short—certainly less than one page.

2. Choose the right resume style for you.
There are two basic approaches to the resume: the traditional, business style or a skill-based style. In the traditional style, you state “I worked here and did X, Y, Z; and then I worked here and did X, Y, Z.” This style will appeal to those on the search team who are in the business world and accustomed to these types of resumes.

The other approach is a skill-based resume. In this approach, you highlight three or four skills that you have (say preaching, administration, and leading short-term missions), and then you explain when and where you’ve used them. It’s not a rule, but people that work in a church tend to like this style; it helps them quickly see your strengths. Additionally, the skill-based style resume helps a candidate highlight his skills even if he has had minimal church ministry experience, and/or developed his skills in non-ministry jobs, such as education or engineering. One other thing to think about: as with the cover letter, tailor the verbiage on your resume to the specific job description you are applying for—but of course, do this only within the bounds of integrity.

3. With audio and video samples, suggest a few of the best but give them several.
If you are a preaching pastor, pick your best two sermons and tell people where they can listen to them online. If you are fortunate enough to have your sermons available on video, pick your favorite two-minute clip and post it somewhere online like Vimeo(not YouTube, which tends to be cluttered). As I said, churches often receive more inquiries than they want, and a solid two-minute clip is all they need at the start of the process. You can always give them more later. But keep this in mind: if the only video footage you have is lame, don’t show it to people. Video of you preaching in a seminary classroom, if it’s anything like mine was, definitely falls under this category. In this case, just give links to audio.

Speaking of audio, early in the hiring process, only give your best sermon or two. Later, if you’re a preaching pastor, encourage the search team to listen to at least a dozen sermons, a dozen sermons that you don’t hand pick. For their sake—and for yours—a diet of your typical preaching should be sampled. Sure, we all have that one great sermon, that one we’d preach at conferences (if we ever got asked), but such sermons aren’t reflective of our norms, and hiring expectations need to be grounded in the typical, not the exceptional.

But what if I don’t have sermon audio? This is common for seminary grads, but there are easy ways to avoid it. When you do preach (in your own church or as a guest in other churches) make sure you get a recording. If you preach at a country church that doesn’t record, as I did for a few months in seminary, you’ll have to do it on your own. You can use your iPhone, or if you want to improve the quality, without spending much money, I’d suggest an entry-level handheld digital recorder such as the Samson Zoom H1.

If you’re a worship leader, what I said of video and audio applies to you as well; except, at some point, you’ll very likely have to find a way to show video. Thus, if you don’t have this already, find a way to get it even if it means recruiting some friends with the necessary skills and equipment, even if this means “leading worship” when no one is in the sanctuary. Be careful, however, as this will be dicey if your potential transition is not public knowledge. In another post I’ll say more about when and who to tell about a transition. For now, suffice it to say this: tell your senior leadership early and certainly before the transition is public. The point to make here is to say that when preparing some early documents to give to churches, you don’t want the senior pastor walking in the sanctuary after youth group only to ask why you are making a music video! Awkward.

4. Include high-quality pictures and a family bio.
You should include pictures of yourself, and if you are married, pictures of your family. Generally speaking, in the business world you don’t want to do this (and it’s often not even allowed), but ministry is different. In fact, because ministry is about relationships and knowing one another, I’m tempted to say it’s wrong to not have a picture, though you are free to disagree. Be careful not to overdo it, though. You don’t want lots of pictures, one or two professional photographs should suffice.

You may be asking, “Where do I put these pictures? In the email? On the cover letter? Where?” Good questions. Here’s what you do. Write a short bio sketch of your family and put the picture at the top of the page. The writing should be informal and conversational. Look at it this way, it’s another chance to display your writing and people skills.

5. Select quality and diverse references.
It’s common for candidates to write that references are “available upon request.” I understand why people do this; either they don’t want to overwhelm churches with lots of paper, or they want to wait until the job search has progressed before they gather this info. However, I say provide them right away. It shows you have nothing to hide, and if you are serious about the job, you’ll have to provide them at some point anyway.

I would suggest picking a diverse group of three to four references. You don’t want them to all be from the same place. For example, you might choose a seminary professor, a former pastor, someone in your congregation that works in the business world, and the parent of a child in your youth group. If you are brave, you might even include a non-Christian who knows you well. This—in fact—is a requirement for pastors since Paul tells us we must “be well thought of by outsiders [to the church]” (1 Timothy 3:7).

In addition to your references’ contact information, make sure you include a short sentence about your relationship to each person. For example, “Tom has been my neighbor for the last ten years. He’s not a Christian, but we are good friends and have had many conversations about the gospel. He has also visited my church several times.” Or, “Steve is the worship pastor at our church. We work closely together, and our families are dear friends.”

And this leads to my last point, namely, as the process moves forwards, it is appropriate to give your references a heads up that they may be getting a call soon.

6. Use simple, professional formatting.
Simple, professional formatting is essential if you’re going be taken seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at resumes with goofy margins or fonts. Make sure to keep all the fonts consistent. The resume, the cover letter, the family bio, and the references should all have the same font. This feels silly to say, but trust me, it matters.

My preference is to use serif fonts, that is, fonts with the little lines on the edges of most letters (in contrast to the font in this blog post, which is a sans-serif font). Serif fonts, like Times New Roman or Garamond, while bland, look more professional. Also, even among serif fonts, don’t get cute. Choose a simple, standard one. If you choose to use a weird, artsy font, you’ll definitely stand out, just not in a good way.

[Part I of II; tips 7-13 here]

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Words and Deeds, and a Few Comments on Balance

Currently I am studying for my ordination exams in the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). It’s a three-year process that has three major steps in it: one at the start, one at the end, and one in-between. The steps at the beginning and the end of the process are similar; each requires a long, doctrinal paper and an oral examination over that same paper. The difference between the two is that the first step requires a 20-page paper and a three-hour oral examination, while the last step is double that—40 pages of writing and a six-hour oral exam.

What’s the middle step? Three years of faithful, gospel ministry in the context of a local EFCA church.

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On May 21 of this year, I participated in the first step and passed. (If interested, you can read my paper here.)

While preparing for this step, I read Evangelical Convictions, which is an exposition of our denomination’s statement of faith. One place I found the book particularly helpful was in the discussion of the relationship between gospel deeds and gospel proclamation. When you hear “gospel deeds,” think of Christ-like acts of service in the church and the world. And when you hear “gospel proclamation,” think communicating the content of the gospel with words. To explain the relationship between the two, the authors of Evangelical Convictions use a musical analogy. They write:

Words often attributed to Francis of Assisi are frequently quoted in [regard to sharing the gospel]: “Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary use words.”

This is misstated, for our words are necessary, just as God’s words are necessary for us to understand his message. But it is true, nonetheless, that how we live provides the context for the content of the message we proclaim. It provides the music that accompanies the lyrics of the gospel—the music which helps to display the beauty of those lyrics to the world.

Thus, proclaiming the gospel in words and living the gospel through loving service to others ought to go hand in hand. Actions without words are insufficient, but words without action lack credibility. We declare God’s love to the world with more power when we also demonstrate that love in how we live. (Evangelical Convictions, 208)

This analogy—words and deeds likened to lyrics and music—is helpful. Gospel deeds by themselves are like instrumental music: good and beautiful, yet open to ambiguity and misinterpretation. And gospel words by themselves are like lyrics without a melody: good and true, yet all the more powerful when set to music.

A Few Comments on Balance

Perhaps you have heard serious debates about the tension between these two and which is more important: practice or proclamation? Should I shovel the snow in my neighbor’s driveway or should I invite them to a Bible Study? Should I volunteer at soup kitchens or hand out gospel tracts? Which is it, deeds or words?

Often in the debate, the word “primarily” is inserted to soften absoluteness—should Christians primarily be involved in gospel deeds or primarily in verbal gospel proclamation. This helps a little, but I agree with the authors of Evangelical Convictions; there is no ultimate tension between the two—words and deeds should go together like lyrics and music.

But just because they “go together,” I do not think our ultimate goal should be to “balance” them. I say this—that balance is not the goal—for three reasons.

First, how could we possibly know if we have just the right amount of each, the perfect balance of words and deeds? Sure, it’s possible to see gross imbalances, especially in others, but what “scale” shall we use to know when things are slightly off?

Second, balance—however it is measured—is something that must be measured over a period of time. For example, in a given moment, I might be engaged in a gospel practice, and in another moment verbal gospel proclamation. The only way to know that my life is “balancing” these two, practice and proclamation, is if you look at the period of time that includes both.

To use a different analogy, if I say, “I haven’t eaten anything in 10 hours!” you might think, “Whoa, that’s unhealthy and out of balance.” However, it might be very normal if when I said this it was 7am and I’d just had a good night’s sleep. We all have natural rhythms of eating and not eating, and in order to see if a person has a balanced diet you need to examine the right period of time. This is what I mean about words and deeds; you have to observe the right period of time. In different seasons, a person (or even a church or parachurch ministry), might rightly be focused more on one than the other.

Third, to complicate this even more, Christians exist in a body, a body made up of different members with different functions just like the human body (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31). Therefore, by God’s great design, some of us will be more inclined to word proclamation and some more to deed proclamation. We can see this clearly displayed in 1 Peter. At one point, Peter writes that all Christians are to “proclaim the excellencies” of God (2:9). Yet later in the epistle, Peter notes that some Christians will do this through speaking and others through service. “Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies” (4:11).

For these reasons, to make balance the highest goal is not only impossible to evaluate, but the wrong goal altogether. Thus, I’m not so worried about how I balance the two in my own life, as much as I am concerned about obedience for this is Paul’s emphasis in Ephesians.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)

Notice the phrase: “when each part is working properly.” The goal is not to make sure we are always in perfect balance, but perfect obedience so that together—the whole body—can sing gospel lyrics to the tune of gospel deeds. That’s the concert I want to be a part of.

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