TopekaStew

I had a great time "at church" yesterday morning. We're in Texas on vacation visiting old friends, Geoff and Beth. We decided to do church with another family, Jeff and Annette, who are friends who've moved here from Topeka. We joined them at their large, suburban church in Allen, Tx. I loved it. The singing was good. The songs were Bible-saturated. The concordance in my head was whirling, reminding me who God is and what he does. Tears came to my eyes. I raised my hands in praise. I got to lean down and point out to my daughter sitting next to me the connection between the words in one song and the Bible verses we had read at the breakfast table that morning. And then, in the middle of the Lord's Supper I looked up and saw a friend I haven't seen in ten years. I stood and walked thirty feet to sit next to him to drink the cup. Annette invited them to lunch with us at their house. Three families joined for a meal, joking, laughing, eating, complimen...

I like the case study I posted yesterday because it makes me think about the essence of what it means to be church. It forces me to ask myself what are the most important parts of Christianity. The fear factor would, I think, send me running to God to know what he would want me to do, rather than coasting along with the status quo. So, the first thing I thought of, of course, was prayer: If I were suddenly dropped into a culture that was more openly hostile to Christianity I would immediately run to God in prayer. I would ask him the following: - keep my family together and steadfast, clinging to God and his truth - to lead us to those being called out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9) so that we might have a community of support (church) - to give us wisdom and boldness to speak to those people - to pray with the new believers: Once He made them part of the church I would begin to pray with them. I think prayer would be one of the primary activities we would need to do as we were "being...

Imagine for a moment that you wake up tomorrow morning and discover that God has plunked you down in a place where Christianity is illegal. There is no section in the Yellow Pages listing churches. There are no cathedrals, no church buildings. You know only a small handful of people who seem sympathetic to the idea of Christianity, but you don't know them well. Your current network of Christian friends/family live far away and they are available to you only by phone or by mail. What would you do? How would you go about being the church in that place? What would God have you do? Assume the following: - the rest of your life is just like your current situation - you have the same kind of job, same income - you live in the same kind of neighborhood - you have the same time, money, and energy constraints you currently have What would you do? How would you go about being the church in that place? What would your priorities be?

Talking about the work of prayer, Mother Teresa once wrote that "the sick can be especially effective in a work that infinitely surpasses human capabilities...." She credited the fact that their weakness strips them of pride and leaves them believing that "they are useless dependents on God alone." "Useless dependents on God alone." "Especially effective." Heavy.

At church we are in the middle of a series on the gospel and how upside-down it is. And I confess that it's messing with my head. I just don't think that I get the gospel. I mean I get it. I get grace and all that. I think I'm growing in grace and knowledge and going deeper as I walk with God. But, man, I'm not there yet. You know? Here's what I mean. I was reading what D.A. Carson wrote in The Cross and Christian Ministry, and I underlined what he says about God's weakness being stronger than our strength: "This is much more radical than saying that God has more wisdom than human beings, or that he is stronger than human beings--as if we are dealing with mere degrees of wisdom and power. Now, we are dealing with polar opposites. Human 'wisdom' and 'strength' are, from God's perspective, rebellious folly and moral weakness." (Carson, p. 26) I think I believe what Carson says, and that when I'm weak, God is strong. Bu...

"...all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...." (Isa. 64:6) Imagine yourself walking into the throne room of God. Picture yourself standing in the presence of the full glory and majesty of the Creator. What would you say? Would you say, "Father, I deserve more. I deserve better than I'm getting right now. I don't deserve to have bad things happen to me"? Can you imagine saying that to God? The person who approaches God demanding better does not have a very well informed imagination. The person who thinks it's okay to tell God what he does and does not deserve lacks a biblical understanding of who God is, not to mention humility. Last Sunday we talked about the fact that the good works we do are like filthy rags before God. Tim Keller, referring to Isaiah 64:6, says the following: "Imagine the most unsightly, smelly, decrepit, homeless person, wandering the city streets in rags. He does not have much of a mind left. He has no resources at all. H...

Angie and I are in the middle of an eight day trip. It is partly a vacation and a celebration of sixteen years of marriage: Our anniversary was last Friday. But the trip is also partly a training and research trip. We're getting ready to build "The Bridge," an afterschool program for urban children in Topeka. We came to Minneapolis for a worship conference that filled our souls. I raised my hands, lifted my voice in songs of praise, and wiped tears from my eyes as I worshiped our Creator and our God. God filled my heart from his word by the preaching of godly men and has inspired me to love him more. Angie and I connected at the highest level, in the presence of the Most High God. On Monday and Tuesday we made our way around Minneapolis, visiting urban ministries, learning what God is doing here. I strongly believe that vision fuels ministry, even during dark and frustrating times, and so it is good to see what God is doing in other cities. We've prayed with inspired,...

Last Sunday the sermon was about struggling in prayer: "I appeal to you, brothers... to strive (struggle) together with me in your prayers...." - Rom. 15:30 The following were the key points of the message: 1) I should not be surprised that prayer is a struggle: I will struggle against the enemy (Eph. 6:12); against sin (Ps. 66:18); and against distractions. I will even struggle with God himself (see Dan.9:27). 2) By joining God on His mission I'll experience a deeper striving in prayer. Just in the last few weeks, as we've been working toward the start of a risky new ministry venture, I've found myself waking up in the mornings with a prayer on my lips. When I step out on faith, when I take risks in Jesus name and boldly attempt new initiatives, it forces me to my knees in prayer. 3) Pray the Bible. I don't pray well and I don't pray for very long without the Bible. Try praying through the memory verses for 2007. We did that at our men's prayer breakf...

Sunday the sermon was about sanctification, which is a five syllable, religious-sounding word. But don't let that deter you. Sanctification is a beautiful process. It refers the transformation of a follower of God from a dingy, cracked mirror to the clean, bright, and shining reflection of his Son. It's not always easy, this process of getting cleaned up, but the final product is beautiful and attractive to others. Below are some of the ways you can plug in to the power of the Spirit and join Him in cleaning up the mirror. Remind yourself that God is at work in you: "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.... He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it" (1 Thess. 4:23-24). "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13). Pray for more holiness in your life: "Lord, give me strength to know the love of Christ that surpasses kno...

It was a Saturday night and I was feeling blue. I was preparing for church the next day, getting myself ready mentally and spiritually. But the voice in my head was arguing with me, saying things like, "Why bother? It doesn't do any good." I felt worthless. I felt blue. It was as if a heavy darkness was encroaching, surrounding me. But then I thought, "I don't believe that. I believe God is at work and that he has a purpose for me." I remembered what I had heard one of my mentors say about preaching good news to himself. So I preached to myself. I spoke aloud, quoting Ps. 42:11 to myself: "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God." - Ps. 42:11 As soon as I heard myself say, "hope in God," a light flicked on in my soul. The light was small, like a candle in a pitch black cave, but as that light came to life the encroaching darkness suddenly jumped ba...

For the past four days I've taught teenagers about prayer. They're at camp, having a blast with their friends, and I got the priviledge and challenge of interrupting their fun in order to direct their minds toward the Bible and what God has to say about communication with Him. What was great about this week was that I was asked to teach the same material for four different groups over four days. This allowed me to teach, reevaluate, reconsider, dig deeper, and then teach again and again. I loved it! Normally I rush through a week, trying to dig into Scripture in order to teach a class and preach a sermon, and then I immediately begin thinking about next week. So, the opportunity to dig down into Scripture on the subject of prayer was refreshing and reinvigorating. One of the passages that really came to life for me was 1 John 1:5-6: "...God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not pract...

Sunday at Southwest we talked about Paul's command to not quench the Spirit. How do we do that? What do I do to avoid pouring water on the flame of God's fire? Consider this quote by the 19th century missionary John Paton. Maybe playing it safe douses the fire. "During the crisis [an epidemic that killed thousands for which Paton and the other missionaries were blamed], I felt generally calm, and firm of soul, standing erect and with my whole weight on the promise, 'Lo! I am with you alway.' Precious promise! Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Savior, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. He became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did gazing down upon the scene. I felt His supporting power.... It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after 20 years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the fa...

"Beautiful!" When I'm at peace, when life is good, I look at my daughters and think, "Beautiful!" And I want to communicate that belief to them in such a way that strengthens them, empowers them. I want to give them a baseline of confidence in who they already are in God's eyes. Our memory verse this week is a great way to convey to them what true beauty is and where it comes from: "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." - Proverbs 31:30 Truly beautiful women, women who should be praised, are those who fear God. But what does that mean? People ask, "God is love, why should I fear Him if He is love?" It is difficult to comprehend. And Scripture even seems to contradict itself on this topic: "Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said...

This is the second in a series of posts on church leadership. On July 1st I preached a sermon from 1 Thess. 5:12-13 considering what it means for leaders to be "over you in the Lord." This topic is too broad to be surveyed in a single sermon, therefore I offer this series and pray that we will meditate on what God considers to be a healthy leadership in the local church. In my reading about healthy leadership in the church I came across a reference to the polity of the church as a mixture of three types of government: The local church is like a monarchy in that Christ is our king; it is like an aristocracy in that it is governed by a body of elders, an elite group of leaders; and it is like a democracy in that the congregation has authority and responsibility to decide matters of discipline and doctrine. Local church government is like a democracy in that it is the assembled church, not just the elders, who make the final decision in matters of discipline: "If your brot...

What has been your experience with those who have been "over you in the Lord"? Has it been a positve experience? Have they been like guides leading you in the mountains, taking you to majestic peaks where they've been before? Or have they been more like managers from the accounting department who can always be counted on to tell you what not to do? The reason I ask is Sunday's sermon was from 1 Thess. 5:12-13. We ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. Paul refers in this passage, I believe, to the team of elders who are charged by God to lead and teach the church. A team of elders--also called pastors or shepherds, also called overseers or bishops (see Titus 1:5-7 and 1 Peter 5:1-2 for examples of the linking of these titles under the banner of the same office)--is to labor among us, be over us, and lead us. At Sout...

What if a natural disaster occurred tonight and washed away everything you own? What would you do? How would you feel? Would you be angry with God? The picture above, upper left, shows a roofless house directly in front of the London canal levee in New Orleans. If you look closely you can see our boys climbing on it. The house in front of them has been gutted and the roof removed. The houses next door to that one, however, are completely gone. Perhaps they were washed away. In the upper right photo you see the pile of debris, furniture, and sheetrock from one of the houses we helped to gut. And the last picture shows the living room of that same house. I was surprised to find that the closet in the bedroom was completely full. It was untouched from the day the floodwaters rose. Seeing these things made us wonder, "Where am I laying up treasures? What would I do if all my earthly treasures were suddenly and irrevocably taken from me?"

What is prayer? Will I ever master it? Last night our "Book of Every Other Month Club" met at Barnes & Noble to discuss The PAPA Prayer , by Larry Crabb. Not everyone in the group appreciated the book. I did. One of the things I liked about Crabb's teaching is that the PAPA prayer moves me. It starts with an honest look at where I am and takes me deeper into me than I want to go. PAPA then teaches me to look up to God and moves me out of the muddy pit of my flesh and sets my feet on the Rock. I agree with Matthew Hoffman who said, "I spend far too much time contemplating myself (my desires, my opinions, my thoughts, etc.) and never enough time contemplating my Savior's work and grace. I am so very thankful for men like Mr. Jerry Bridges, C.J. Mahaney and of course Mr. Spurgeon himself who call us to 'preach the gospel to ourselves every day!'" If prayer leaves me stuck on me and my desires then I am lost in a deep, empty pit. If, however, I can ...

One of the best things about a summer mission trip is the time together in the van: long conversations about deep subjects; plenty of opportunity to get to know one another; the sharing of new sights and experiences. It's also one of the worst things about the trip too: seemingly endless hours on the road; travel grunge all over the van; stinky teenaged boys; irritating personal habits that begin to grate one's nerves. Last year we traveled to Miami. Talk about a long drive! This year we only traveled 1,000 miles to New Orleans.

Traveling to a mission point and experiencing firsthand the work of missions opens the mind and the heart to what God is doing in the world. The Southwest church, therefore, has committed to sending out a group of short-term missionaries every summer. Our prayer is that God will ignite the fire of a missionary vision in the heart of our congregation. Last week we sent a group of seven men to New Orleans to work with Operation Nehemiah. Over the next several days we'll post photos and stories from the trip. I invite you to use the stories and pictures to inspire you to prayerfully consider how God might want all of us to be on mission right here in Topeka.

Anthony is a friend and mentor. He works in Little Rock. Here's one of his "Mission Messages." 6/12/07 It was a nice shirt, Lord. Just a t-shirt, but a gray one with "Hilti" on it, and I like gray t-shirts. I don't know what "Hilti" means, but Will noticed me admiring the shirt still in the package. The shirt he was wearing was dirty, and he smelled. "You want it?" he asked. I shook my head thinking, "Of course not, what, take a new shirt from a man who sleeps on the street at night? No way." Then, it started to hit me what was happening. 'You don't need it?" I asked. He smiled with a seriousness, "But, do you want it?" "Yes, I do," realizing he was trying to give me a gift. "You see, God's still workin' on me, to serve others, that's what He's teaching me right now, how to serve others. I'll see if I can go get another one tomorrow,...

I couldn't find my Bible Sunday morning. I had set it down somewhere in the auditorium, and so when I got up to preach I had to take my NIV into the pulpit. And then, in the middle of my sermon, I couldn't help myself: "What a horrible translation!" It just poured out of my mouth. And some people were offended, defensive of their translation. Let me tell you why I think Phil. 2:30 is translated poorly in the NIV. I was going to compare the structure of Col. 1:24 with the structure of Phil 2:30. Col.1:24 says, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." (Col. 1:24, ESV) My point was that there is nothing lacking in the quality Christ's afflictions. What was lacking was some kind of experiential knowledge of the afflictions. Paul's sufferings, therefore, allowed them to know something about the afflictions of Christ. I was goin...

"...above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord." - George Mueller The first order of business every day, says Mueller, is to get my soul happy in God. Great advice. But I've not yet mastered the technique. One of the ways I like to do that is by thinking about glory. I don't know exactly what glory looks like. I've been asking God to show it to me lately, but he's not yet given me a big glorious experience. The Apostle Paul, however, must have had a strong vision of it: "...the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." - Romans 8:18-19 And talk about suffering! Paul knew suffering: "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three timesI was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea...." -2 Cor. 11:24-25 So, Paul suffered much, but said it couldn't be compared wi...

"The biggest challenge facing the church is to address the fragmentation and discontinuity of the American lifestyle." - Lyle E. Schaller I read the following this morning in Sam O'Neal's post at Out of Ur : Randy Frazee spoke on the call to community. According to Frazee, the average American family manages 35 separate relationships on a day-to-day basis—children, extended family, neighbors, government, school, friends, work, Starbucks employees, landlords, telemarketers, etc. And this is before that family gets invited to church, which usually adds another 6 connections—at least. As a result, Americans are knee-deep in the unprecedented phenomenon of grouped isolation—what Frazee refers to as "crowded loneliness." We are in desperate need of meaningful relationships, yet too busy and too pulled to maintain them. Thirty-five separate relationships? No wonder I'm so tired. What can we do? How will we ever conquer the busyness of life? I think one crucial...

My older brother called me yesterday. He was on his way to a training program put on the Crown Financial Ministries. He had that note of excitement in his voice that I remember from when we were kids. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of when he got his Yamaha 360. Not an impressive bike by today's standards, but he was in love. He wanted to sleep on it that night. Yesterday he was just calling to check in. It was a spur of the moment thing. Cell phones are good for that. We talked about ministry and about ambition and about submission to a Master who wants to draw us away from the love of the praise of men. And then we prayed. I'm a preacher. I set it as my goal to end nearly every phone conversation with church members with a "quick prayer." I don't know why, but many Christians are surprised by the request, but they almost always appreciate it. And lets be honest--we're Americans--the addition of "quick" provides relief. Yesterd...

This Sunday the Discovery Channel will release a documentary entitled, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The film asserts that the tomb of Jesus may have been found in Jerusalem. What does this mean for us? Why should I pay attention? Let me give three reasons. "It doesn't get bigger than this." Those are the words used by James Cameron, the director of the film "Titanic," in support of the documentary. He's right. If their claim that they have found the bones of Jesus of Nazareth are true then our faith will have sustained a fatal blow. And that's why such claims always make the front page of every major newspaper. If Jesus of Nazareth did not rise from the grave and ascend into heaven then, as Paul wrote, “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:17a, 18). “Make the most of every opportunity.” This documentary, like all the other films and discoveri...

In the New York Times today there was an article entitled, "Is Looking Your Age Now Taboo?" The article made me wonder, what would Christian's look like if we took the Bible seriously? Would we resist societal pressure to color our hair and use Botox? Your beauty should not come from outward adornment.... Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit... (1 Peter 3:3-4). I long to be a part of a church where older people looked wrinkled on the outside, but whose eyes sparkle with the wisdom and joy of souls steeped in the grace of God. But I have to admit that it's getting close to the time when I'll be tested on this. I've always said that I'm not going to color the gray out of my hair. Well, my head is starting to glisten with more and more gray. And there is most certainly a great deal of pressure in America to look young. I imagine it is very humbling to be referred to as an old man when one's...

Our memory verse this week is 1 Peter 2:24: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." As I was working on memorizing it during my prayer time today it occurred to me that I should use this verse to teach my kids about the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Why? Why do I think it's important to teach them about the atonement? The atonement is one of the central doctrines of Christianity. Paul said, "I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." The tendency in American churches is to get soft on sin and not talk too much about the bloody atonement of Christ. A full understanding of the atonement will grab their hearts. It will inspire worship. If they understand who God is and why he does what he does then the roots of their faith will sink deep into the soil of God's love and they will bear the fruit of righteousness. So, here...

What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? How can I test myself to see whether I'm following his lead? One of the most concrete places to look would be my checkbook. Today I came across an anecdote that illustrates the point: "Allen and Jean Hitchcock decided to en their marriage of 24 years. In anticipation of the divorce settlement, Allen began to review the family's financial records. As he sorter through the files, he came across an old faded check made out to the hotel where he and Jean had stayed on their honeymoon. Another check had paid for an installment on their first car. He picked up still another check and remembered with fatherly pride how he had written it out the hospital when their daughter was born. And then there was the down payment on their first home..." (Howard Dayton, Your Money Counts , p. 7)." After several hours of sorting through such checks Allen picked up the the phone and called his wife. He surprised her by blurting out that he wa...

Today in my sermon I talked about understanding money in terms of the eternal reward God promises to his followers. Here's a classic quote from C.S. Lewis that well illustrates the point: "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mudpies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." May God increase our desires.