Forgotten God

Danae Yankoski (Contributor). David C. Cook 2009, Paperback, 208 pages, $6.99

Chan begins by lamenting our disconnect from the power of the Spirit. He considers the cause to be our comfort. Chan admits:

I also know that God works uniquely in various places and times, and I do think this explains part of the difference between here and there. However, I also believe that the Spirit is more obviously active in places where people are desperate for Him, humbled before Him, and not distracted by their pursuit of wealth or comforts (like we are). The light of the American church is flickering and nearly extinguished, having largely sold out to the kingdoms and values of this world.

He challenges the church to consider its reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps much of what exists in the modern church is human endeavor. Chan states:

The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.

May we, as a church, pursue God’s Spirit in all we do. May our work be more concentrated on following the Spirit and less concerned with building a grand institution. Chan yearns for Spirit level work in his life.

I can probably “pull off’ a fairly adequate church on my own . . . But who wants or needs that? I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through. That if He doesn’t come through, I am screwed. (I probably shouldn’t write that word here, but it’s how I truly feel about this.)

May what happens at First Baptist not be in our own power. May what God does through us be unexplainable! May the Spirit of God empower us like never before.

Mission Dinners

We continue to provide meals for the men at the Muncie Mission during the month of August. On August 1st and August 10th, we will provide dinner for these men.If you are interested in helping on August 1st, please contact Marianne at 254-1484 or Jane at 759-8276. If August 10th works better for you, contact Debbie at 730-2796.

School Supply Giveaway

Jenny and Keith are organizing a project to provide school supplies for the children involved in A Better Way. They are accepting monetary donations for this project.

Poverty Simulation

Finally, we are continuing to learn more about those living in poverty. On August 17 from 5:30 – 8:00 pm, role play the circumstances of a person living in poverty, trying to survey four “weeks” in the town of Realville. After the debriefing, hear the testimonials of local people who have lived the circumstances that participants faced in the simulation. A total of 99% have learned “more” to “a lot more” during the 55 simulations TEAMwork has hosted, and 98% would recommend the exercise to someone else. There is no cost for this event. RSVP to TEAMwork at 765-747-7158 or jim@teamworkql.org.

In July, the church provided dinner for the OPT (Overcoming Poverty Together). Everyone involved was encouraged by the fantastic work that is taking place. We continue to partner with Teamwork in its continuing efforts to eliminate poverty in Delaware County.

We continue to discern our involvement in the area of students and are seeking direction in this area. Please pray for our church–for the power of the Holy Spirit to guide our efforts.

Do people individually discover God’s will and then collectively share how God has been leading them. Do we then decide how God is leading the church based on how He is leading each of us individually? This has been the assumption in many churches. God will lead people individually; the sum of this individual leading equals the direction of the church.

This is a false assumption. In our passage this week, God leads the church to direct individuals. The discerning of the Holy Spirit happens as the believers are gathered for worship.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (Acts 13:2 NIV)

The Holy Spirit is mysterious, dynamic, and ever prompting his people. Reading Francis Chan’s Forgotten God has illuminated the work of the Holy Spirit for me. I would highly recommend this book.

Forgotten God

Danae Yankoski (Contributor). David C. Cook 2009, Paperback, 208 pages, $6.99

The point I am making is that in Acts, the people discern the Holy Spirit as they are gathered. It is not a private endeavor. Sure, we each need to learn to be attentive to the Holy Spirit in our lives. He prompts each of us in different ways as we seek His guidance. However, Acts paints the picture of the church discerning together. Paul’s journeys in the New Testament lay the foundation for God’s work throughout the entire world. Paul and Barnabas are directed to go in Acts 13 as the church discerns through its worship.

May we continue to do the ever important work of discerning God collectively as we gather.

I see ways He protected us, utilized us, prepared us. I am thankful for what He was doing then and see how each piece fit together for the furthering of His Kingdom. I know that I am not detailing these events; they are really to many to catalog. What I am saying is that God is always working through the most unlikely events. He is often preparing us now for what He will do later.

In this week’s text, God is laying foundations for future works. The establishment of the church in Antioch and the death of Herod both serve to propel the work of the Kingdom.

God is always at work. His plans and His timing are perfect. May we learn to live into His plans; May we trust His timing.

I would like to ask each of you to remember me in prayer as I speak to the congregation in Springfield on Sunday. Pray that God will enliven their celebration and direction for the future. Ask God to transform their rich history into a hopeful future. We are sister churches that have much in common and your prayers for their congregation will be appreciated.

Randy Gruendyke, campus pastor from Taylor University, will be teaching at First Baptist on Sunday. Randy is a gifted communicator. His passion for God’s Word and students in apparent in all he does. He will be speaking from Luke 16, the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Randy is in his eighth year as campus pastor at Taylor University. Randy is originally from Southern California where he began his pastoral ministry at the church in which he grew up. Before coming to Taylor, Randy served as college pastor at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Along with, Nancy, his wife of sixteen years, Randy has three daughters, ages 13, 12 and 10. In his spare time Randy enjoys genealogy, biking and spending time with his family.

I am afraid that too many of us have equated God with a church, a country, a political party, or some other group of people. We have boxed God into our own idea, or perception of Him. The early church was guilty of the same sort of behavior. They had limited God’s movement to their own people group, the Jews. They were in and everyone else was out.

Yet in Acts 10, the Spirit prompts Peter beyond his conception of God. He challenges him to rethink his expectations of God. In this week’s story, God brings two very unlikely characters together (a Roman Centurion and a Jewish fisherman). They would not have given each other a second thought if they had causally passed on the street. Even so, God brings them into the same house, sharing life together.

Just when we think we have God figured out, He surprises us. He calls us out of our comfort zone. He challenges us into a new way of thinking.

Are you following a church, a persuasive leader, a political group (or ideology), a belief system? Or are you following the Spirit of God? People and institutions will always let you down; God will always be faithful. People and institutions are fairly predictable, God is not. Let me warn you, following Him may rock your world. It did for Peter.

Join us on Sunday as we look at the story of Cornelius (Acts 10).

OPT Dinnner

We are hosting the July OPT (Overcoming Poverty Together) dinner at First Baptist. This evening is a great chance to learn more about an organization that has been meeting in our building for four years. I hope that each of you will plan on attending on Thursday, July 15th from 6-8 PM.

Poverty Simulation

A second occasion for learning is a Poverty Simulation on August 17 from 5:30–8:00 p.m. This event will help us understand the daily struggles of those living in poverty. It is an interactive, role-play training that is sure to open your eyes.

Soccer Team Dinner

Thirdly, David Jones is coordinating a dinner for the Ball State Women’s Soccer Team on August 12 at 6:00 p.m. Cooks, servers and other volunteers will be needed to make this possible. This is one way that we can begin to serve students in our community.

The ways in which we function as a church are not limited to church sponsored events. Perhaps God is leading you to organize an event or simply volunteer your time with students or those living in poverty. Let’s continue to discern the Spirit’s leading, going where He is already working. How might the Spirit be prompting you? Are you saying “yes” to His leading?

While this story make invoke a chuckle (especially the idea of my rapping part of the sermon), the description of gangster is not an exaggeration.

Saul was working for an incredibly violent group of people. He was also a ruthless person. The verb used to describe Saul in Acts 8:3 is a rare word that is only used once in the New Testament. However, it is used in Psalm 80:13 (LXX) describing wild boars devastating a vineyard. It is the sort of word that would have been used to describe a body ravaged by a wild beast. One scholar actually translates the word “mauled”.

Secondly, when Saul is converted and preaching the message of Jesus, the religious leaders try to kill him. Much like a gang, his leaving is not tolerated. Becoming a Christian, for Saul, put him on the hit list.

Saul was a gangster; a violent beast, in ruthless pursuit to kill and destroy the church. That is what makes his conversion so astounding. Only God could do something like this. Join us this week in worship as we study the conversion of Saul (Acts 9).

In this week’s story, Philip finds himself caught up in God’s story. He encounters unlikely characters, announcing the good news (euaggelizō) as God enables him. I am struck by the haphazard sequence of events. Philip, dispersed from Jerusalem by persecution, travels to Samaria. Samaria was not on the “Top 10 Desirable Places” in Jewish travel magazines.
Next, he finds himself accompanying an Ethiopian eunuch: Explaining Jesus’s fulfillment of Isaiah was probably not on his “to-do list”. Yet, standing in a roadside pool and baptizing a dark skinned man, Philip found fulfillment in following God’s plan.

We often have our ideas of what we would like to accomplish for God. Perhaps our ideas are not all bad. But sometimes God has different plans. The challenge for First Baptist Church is to discover the leading of the Spirit. We must consider God’s leading rather than asking him to join us in our endeavors.

What is God doing in the world? How can we join Him? What role does he desire for us to play as the sent people of God? We may be surprised, finding ourselves — like Philip — in unlikely places as we open ourselves to His leading.

The Church Between Gospel & Culture

The first book is a collection of essays by leading thinkers of the church’s relationship with culture.

The Church Between Gospel and Culture (Gospel & Our Culture)

Mr. George R. Hunsberger (Editor). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1997, Paperback, 390 pages, $25.00

We live in tension relating to culture. We (the church) must learn to live in culture in a manner of relating to culture; yet we must also strive to keep the gospel free from cultural entrapments.

If there is too little identification with the culture, the church becomes a subcultural ghetto. If it assumes too much of the culture’s perspectives and values, it domesticates and tames the gospel. The latter has become the major problem for the churches of North America. p. xvi

These essays challenge the church to carefully critique the culture, discerning how to bring the gospel into it. We need to assess our culture with a careful eye.

If the churches of North America are to engage in a missionary encounter with our culture, it will require them to learn skills enabling them to engage in the task of carefully exegeting the cultural context. p. 56

These authors assert that too often, the church has uncritically adopted culture and watered down the gospel. Therefore, the church needs to discern the gospel. This requires us to carefully consider what parts of the gospel are tied to culture. We must then learn to live out the gospel as a community. This may require us to reconsider ways that we currently function as a church. We discern this only through the power of the Spirit.

In this posture – standing on both the culture side and the gospel side – we must seek our identity. The crisis of the moment pushes us to it. The missionary essence of the church assumes it of us. The Spirit of Christ lead us there. p. 297

Finally, the essays point us toward living in this discernment. I especially appreciate the clarification of how the pastor serves. Alan Roxburgh describes the pastor as apostle, poet, and prophet.

The pastor/apostle is one who forms congregations into mission groups shaped by encounters with the gospel in the culture, structuring the congregations shape into forms that lead people outward into a missionary encounter. p. 328

As poet, the pastor articulates the experience of the church.

Poets are the articulators of experience. They image and symbolize the unarticulated experiences of the community, identifying and expressing the soul of the people (functioning as the dancer in worship who interprets the experience). The poet is listener and an observer, sensing the experience of the body and giving that experience a voice. p. 330

He further explains this dynamic.

In such a discourse the poet/pastor brings to voice their story so that there occurs a “Yes! This is who we are! This is who we meet when we touch the fear and confusion about being God’s people in this culture!” The pastor weaves together the people’s voices so that the story of who they are and what they actually experience is articulated, called forth, and owned. p. 330

The pastor also serves as prophet, communicating the Word of God to challenge the people to the new places that God is calling them.

I found this read encouraging, in the sense that we are heading in the right direction. It was also challenging, affirming that we have much to do in becoming the church that God intends for us to be.

The Great Giveaway

The second book is written by a Northern Seminary professor, David Fitch (Dr. Fitch is my professor for this course).

The Great Giveaway

David E. Fitch. Baker Books 2005, Paperback, 272 pages, $5.00

Dr. Fitch asserts that the modern church has given away its true essence.

The thesis of this book is that evangelicalism has “given away” being the church in North America. Simply put, evangelical churches have forfeited the practices that constitute being the church either (a) by portioning them off to various concerns exterior to the church or (b) by compromising them so badly that they are no longer recognizable as being functions of the church. p. 13

He asserts that we have fallen into the traps of culture, evaluating church in terms of size, efficiency, and business effectiveness. He proposes faithfulness over effectiveness, quality over quantity.

The goal is not bigness. The goal is to inflame the inner workings of the body. This success rejects naïve goals of modernists management for largeness and efficiency that overlook the substance of what goes on that makes the church his body. p. 43

He examines the way we view evangelism, leadership, worship, preaching, justice, spiritual formation, and moral education. His ideas are thought provoking and would provide fantastic discussion. Fitch envisions a church “practicing the practices”, living out the sort of community recorded in Acts, and moving away from the cultural models of success and bigness.

I will not detail the entire book, but would welcome discussion around either of these books. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.