Paul Stewart

Richard Foster on the Financial Crisis

Because we lack a Divine Center our need for security has led us to an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. “We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.” …We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity.

-- Richard Foster on Simplicity from Celebration of Discipline

Who Should I Vote For? (1 of 4)

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior - I Timothy 2:1-3

I am struggling with this election more than any other I can remember. I honestly have no idea who I will be voting for on November 4th. As I watch and observe the political ploys by the candidates, their surrogates and the talking heads in the media I quickly become cynical to the entire process. How could an honest leader ever emerge from a system so saturated in corruption?

When I sit down and listen to both candidates in more civilized forums, like Saddleback or the first presidential debate last week, I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with both candidates almost simultaneously. I often walk away with more questions than answers…

Is it best to protect the unborn by electing a candidate who will criminalize abortion or one who has a plan to reduce the number of abortions? Was the financial crisis caused by too much regulation or not enough? Is the best way out of Iraq through a series of objectives or a definite timetable? Will we be safer as a nation by continuing to display force or by increasing our standing in the world? Do we need a president who sees the world primarily through the lens of past experience or vision for the future? 

On top of all that, the evangelicals seem to be front-and-center (again) in this election - whether it be the old “moral majority” or “religious-right,” or the “new evangelicals” - this year even the “Pentecostals” have a stake.

Over the next few days I’ll be exploring how a Christian should “vote” in this year’s election. However, for the purposes of this conversation, I would like to expand the meaning of the word “vote” to “influence.”

Shane Claiborne puts it this way in his latest book Jesus for President:

"What is more important than how we vote on November 4 is how we live on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5… We vote every day with our lives... we vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips, and our wallets. We vote for the poor. We vote for the peacemakers. We vote for the marginalized, the oppressed, the most vulnerable of our society. Ultimate change does not just happen every four years."

In other words, in the midst of the daily political melodrama with all of the familiar characters - liberals, conservatives, red states, blue states, independents, swing voters, and of course the crucial idgit voters - what is the best way to rise above the madness and gain influence in our nation and our world?

Chesterton on the Financial Crisis

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." -- Mark 10:25

I was re-reading Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton this morning with all of the news of the recent financial crisis in the back of my mind when this paragraph about jumped off the page at me:

[The Christian Church] has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we do come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment.

I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest - if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this - that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.

The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed.

The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt.

If I would have been paying attention when I first read this book five years ago, I probably would not have been as surprised by last week’s news.

By the way, were you as outraged as Bono last week when he said “It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases." 

My Personal Teacher

To follow Christ is to trust him as our teacher. To trust his way is the right way. This means we cannot separate what he said from what he did and the way he did it.

When Jesus said in John 14:6 -- “I am the way…” he used the word not just as a simple noun designating a road that leads to a destination, but as a rich metaphor. He didn’t just lay out the path for heaven, he came to show us a new way of life.

He wants to change the way we talk, the way we use our influence, the way we treat each other, the way we raise our children, the way we read, the way we worship, the way we feel, the way we eat… and on and on.

In fact the primary term for identifying followers of Jesus in the early church was “the Way.”

Jesus didn’t just point out the way and then step aside and let us get there on our own as best we can. He pointed out the way, but then he took the initiative, inviting us to go with him.

In the past, we used to do evangelism with people and we would often start with this question: What if you were to die tonight?

But the real question is: What if you don’t die tonight? What if you wake up tomorrow and you are still alive? Who are you going to follow? Who are you going to trust?

To become a follower of Jesus and to experience his abundant life I have to believe that Jesus is right about stuff. I have to trust what Jesus actually said about money or anger or prayer or sex or worry or fear or servant hood or caring for the poor.

I have to follow Him. I have to make Him my teacher.

We used to talk a lot about making Jesus my personal Savior….

The question for today is, have you made Him your personal teacher?

Believer vs. Follower

This weekend I talked about the difference of “believing” in Jesus for our salvation and actually “following” him with our life.

In many churches the idea of following Christ has been watered down to mean: Trust that he made an arrangement to get me into heaven after I die.

But it is never used that way in the New Testament. Jesus never meant for us to just believe or just behave— he wants us to follow him, to imitate his way of life.

This morning, I read the first chapter of Follow Me by Jan David Hettinga. In it he describes what the Christian life would be like for someone who believes in Jesus but does not follow Him:

• I would be cynical about church and the possibility of the Christian life actually working.
• cover the fact that I was spiritually empty, dry, and unsatisfied.
• tend to be passive and apathetic. I would have good intentions but lack follow-through.
• be focused on myself - my needs, my rights, my options.
• prefer being a spectator - watching, listening, but not really participating.
• insist on arranging my life around my personal preferences, pleasures, and comforts.
• subdivide my life so I could move from one sealed compartment to another, keeping each strictly separate - church world, work world, leisure world, family world, and so forth.
• go through the motions, doing what is expected, more out of habit than anything else.
• be spiritually sterile, barren, and nonproductive in witness, and not troubled about it.
• pride myself on my ability to be independent and self-sufficient.
• keep my options open and remain uncommitted in order to avoid getting tied down.
• have little or no sense of overriding spiritual purpose or cause, prefer to drive.
• cover up a quiet desperation inside - “There’s gotta be more to the Christian life than this powerless state I’m experiencing. 

YouTube Debut

I've never written, directed, or starred in a video before... but there is a first time for everything. We used this video as a part of my message this weekend on the adventure of following Christ. Had a blast making this with my friends Eric Bishop and Matt Moeckl (Jesus) out at Wildwood Hills Ranch.

What does theology have to do with real life?

I only have a few more classes to go on my Master’s degree, which makes me very happy. This week I started a seminar called Theological Integration. The class is being taught by David Clark who wrote one of my favorite books on theological method, To Know and Love God.

The following is how he introduced the course on the syllabus:

Nothing’s more practical for a Christian minister than good theology. But I’m talking about more than just applying abstract theory to practical contemporary issues. Transformational leaders “think theologically,” that is, they reflect critically and act intentionally from within the teachings of theology and the experience of life with God. They interpret and explain leadership situations and transforming experiences with God by understanding them in terms of—in the categories of—the reality and revelation of God. Then they act out of that understanding.

I totally agree! The church doesn't just need more theologians, the church needs more pastors and leaders who are good theologians. Really looking forward to this course. 

The Emerging Church is Dead

The Out of Ur Blog reports that the “emerging church” is officially dead. To be honest, that doesn’t really surprise me. The “emerging” label suffered from extreme overuse and a total lack of definition.

What is interesting to me is there are now rumors that Erwin McManus, Dan Kimball, Scot McKnight and others are looking to create a new network of like-minded thinkers and churches:

As the emerging church rides off into the sunset, where does that leave things? Well, news has been leaking about a new network being formed by Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot McKnight among others. I understand further meetings will be happening this week to help solidify the group. The still unnamed network has agreed to start with the inclusive but orthodox theological foundation of the Lausanne Covenant, and they intend to emphasize mission and evangelism. They appear to have learned from the emerging church’s mistake—define purpose and doctrine early so your identity doesn’t get hijacked. If they do their work carefully, perhaps the new network can avoid getting “wacked” in every sense of the word.

What do you think? Will you be signing on?

Best Place to Write a Sermon

So far, the downtown Des Moines Public Library is the best place I've found to write a sermon. You can't help but be inspired in this place.

     

This weekend I am preaching the third message in our I Became A Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt series. I am talking about imitating Christ and my friends Matt and Eric and I put together a little video to go along with it. Should be a good weekend!

October is for Conferences

Really getting excited about the Catalyst Conference and the Willow Creek Group Life Conference next month! 

 

At Catalyst I'm most excited about hearing from Seth Godin, Andy Crouch, and Craig Groeschel on the main stage as well as Ed Stetzer, Mark Batterson, and Dave Ferguson at a church-planting lab. Also hoping to run into this guy!

At Group Life I can't wait to hear from Heather Zemple and John Burke. 

Anyone else going to either of these conferences? Let me know, I'd love to meet you!