Why homeschool?

Just a few random thoughts on homeschooling. After several years of trying it, I now think it's not such a great idea unless you're a total homebody and have children who also are homebodies. I'm also jaded now by the number of homeschooling moms I've met who are not working hard at educating, but at "protecting." You know the sort. Every other day is Pajama Day or Back to Nature Day (read: Let's spend the day finding frogs in the grass). That's not a better education. It does nothing to help the movement or convince the world that Christian parents want BETTER for their kids. It just makes us look lazy. Spare me the test-score argument about homeschooled kids. I've also found many of them to have an attitude that they're on par with adults, socially. Many of them interrupt adults constantly, while their beaming homeschooling moms remain clueless that the little darlings are reflecting badly on them. It is just rude. More later.

A Revealing statement ...

One of the latest issues to hit the evangelical blogosphere is the chatter about the Willow Creek Community Church survey. It shows the more mature Christians there don't believe they're being spiritually fed (that loud, collective "Well, DUH!" you hear in the background is from those Christians everywhere who came to this fascinating realization about 30 years ago. So much for Bill Hybels being on the cutting edge!).

What's so telling about Hybels himself, though, is how he reacts to this survey in this clip from the Leadership Summit. In this video, Hybels almost has a hissy fit over his flock's complaint that they're not being fed the meat of the Word of God. In response, Hybels says sarcastically that he'll make sure they're fed until they "BARF." And the crowd laughs! That this guy continues to pass himself off as a legitimate Christian pastor is beyond belief. You simply have to hear it yourself to believe it:

http://revealnow.com/story.asp?storyid=49

I truly pray for the Christians at WCCC, that they will quickly realize that if they want to be spiritually fed, there's only one option: Leave and find a true church that preaches the gospel!

As Jesus told Peter, "Do you love me? ... then feed my sheep." The pastor who truly loves Christ's church will do just that - or grieve. Not sarcastically bash the flock.

Praying for grace,
mlj

Grammatical questions

Today's topic is how grammatical weirdness in the evangelical world shows a lot about the state of its spiritual health.

For instance, If I hear "God" used as an adjective one more time, I am going to scream. "It's a 'God' thing." "That's just so 'God.'" "We had a big 'God' night." These are a few of the types of quotes you hear and read if you're out and about the evangelical media at all. I often hear or read this type of quote from so-called youth pastors, who ought to know better than to so cavalierly refer to the holy and righteous Creator and Sustainer of the universe.

My other complaint: Using the word 'worship' with no direct object. This is very prevalent in the so-called 'worship' movement of CCM. I constantly see references to "worship" without mention of WHO is being worshiped! "We just want to come together and worship." Where is the rest of the sentence? WHOM are you worshiping, folks?

Forget that line about putting Christ back in Christmas. It's getting so we need to put Christ back into our Christianity! Or, more accurately, we need to get on our faces before our Lord Jesus Christ himself and ask him to have mercy on his backslidden, cold and hardhearted church.

Praying for grace,
mlj

The church needs to wake up

This isn't really a good title for a short blog. But it is what it is, and it's true.
Consider our current, potentially explosive world situation. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. At the very moment when the church should be the MOST clear about the gospel, the MOST committed to the truth of God's Word and the MOST serious about God's holiness and man's sinfulness, and at the moment when our pastors and leaders should be the MOST direct and passionate about proclaiming Jesus Christ to the world ... well, the American church is not even asleep in the light, as Keith Green once sang. It's not well-fed OR dead. It's alive (by all worldly appearances) and blaspheming its Lord at a rate probably unparalleled in church history.
The Slice of Laodicea recently posted this horrific link. Click on it for a small example of what I mean. http://www.crossrevconnect.com/
Lord, have mercy on your church.

Praying for grace,
mlj

On Christ's imputed righteousness

The church had better get busy spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
First, we need to remember (or learn for the first time) what it is. I was in my 20s, and a believer since my childhood, before I ever heard an accurate rendering of the doctrine of imputed righteousness. I was shocked that I spent my whole life in the evangelical setting and never once heard that doctrine.
But Christ's imputed righteouness is the gospel. To hear only about Christ dying on the cross is to not hear the whole story. We have our debt cancelled through Christ's glorious atonement. My sin is paid for. But my balance, rather than being in the red, is now zero. It takes Christ's righteousness to put credit in my account and thereby win heaven for me.
If I don't understand that I have a right standing with God because CHRIST kept the law in my place, then I will think that - as a Christian - my assurance depends on MY keeping the law. That's the practical result. I will think that Jesus Christ paid my sin debt, but now it's up to me to keep the law - or watch out! This naturally leads to lots of silly things like rebaptisms, rededications, re-aisle-walkings, etc. etc. If we really believed Christ accomplished our salvation for us, as we sometimes (OK, rarely!) sing, then we wouldn't keep acting like it all depends on us.
Far from making us antinomians, this good news makes us more zealous for holiness. Our gratitude drives us to our knees.
The blood of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. We can add nothing to it and take nothing away from it. The relief, the relief, the relief! Praise the Lord!
Let's start telling the world again - and let's start inside the church. Please, Lord Jesus, raise up godly men again who will feed us your truth, as did Spurgeon and Edwards. How we need them in our day.

Praying for grace,
mlj

Vacation Bible Church

My four-year-old son has now dubbed the large, boxy Yippety Creek sect down the street "Vacation Bible Church." Out of the mouths of babes!

It's not worship - it's a vacation from worship.

Gack.

Praying for grace,
mlj

What does 'Bible Church' even mean anymore?

Back in my college days, I attended a Bible church. I attended another Bible church in another state after graduation. Back in those days (the late '80s and early '90s), going to a Bible church usually guaranteed you several things: A DTS grad as a pastor, an emphasis on dispensationalism and an unabashed diet of expository preaching, which was usually fairly sound and pretty Christ-centered.
I haven't had a lot of further contact with Bible churches in the last several years. But entropy being what it is, I wasn't terribly shocked at what I heard at a Bible church near us a few weeks ago.
The sermon was on evangelism. Great topic! You'd think that would involve the gospel, wouldn't you? Oh, come on. That is soooo sixteenth century, my friend. Nowadays, evangelism involves "telling your personal story of what Jesus means to you!" That was it. Forty-five minutes of advice on how to make evangelism personal and relevant (I've now banned that word from my personal lexicon). Oh, well, we did open the Bible and flip around to a few passages, but the pastor never actually read any of them. And as for Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection? or sin? or the extent or meaning of the atonement? Never even mentioned. Doctrine doesn't matter, you see, because if we started teaching doctrine, someone might figure out that the mope on the stage up there isn't fit to run the narthex Starbucks, much less serve as a pastor/shepherd.
This reminds me of the one time I visited Harvest Bible Chapel on Good Friday in the late '90s. I actually joked with the person who hauled me there, as we were preparing to go in: "Gosh, do you really think I even need to bring this Bible in? It's not like we're going to read it!" I was given a very stern look, so I brought my Bible in. After three dramas and five rock-band numbers (always what you want to experience -- a rockin' Good Friday!), the pastor got up and assured us that he "wasn't going to preach a sermon;" he just wanted to talk to us. We got no sermon. No pastoral prayer. No Scripture. And guess what? We never opened a Bible, either! Boy, was my companion's face red!
So the moral of the story, kiddies, is that "Bible" in the title of an alleged evangelical church these days means - by my estimation - about as much as "Jesus Christ" in the title of the Mormons' false church: NOTHING.
Why the Lord has not just zapped us all out of existence, I don't guess I'll ever understand.

Praying for grace,
mlj