Tonight, I'm reviewing the message I'll share at Two Rivers, where I serve as Interim Pastor. I love the people there, and am happy to be able to serve the body and work along side them. The Tennesean (our Nashville paper) recently did a story on Two Rivers focusing on its healing and movement forward. If you aren't from around here you probably don't know the details, but it has had some rough days.

The Barna Group has just released four themes they see from their research in 2009. Read the excerpts below, check out the full article here, and come back to discuss.

Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.

Continue reading Barna's End of Year Review.

I am not a Pentecostal, but I appreciate Pentecostals. I have had the privilege of consulting with or speaking at several different groups and denominations in the Pentecostal and charismatic movement(s). Clearly, there are many wonderful charismatic and Pentecostal Christians doing some amazing things for the Lord. But, the movement has struggled lately with some... well... odd issues over the last few years.

As I recently mentioned, I am intrigued by the Independent Baptist Movement. It is often caricatured and frequently misunderstood, but definitely worth understanding. With that in mind, when I see research on this movement, it catches my attention.

Paul Chappell and Clay Reed have written a book based upon an independent, nationwide survey of independent Baptist churches, and the result is Church Still Works, an insightful read that will prove surprising to some and encouraging to all.

Paul is the senior pastor of Lancaster Baptist Church and president of West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California. Clayton is the founder and director of Global Church Planters, which has worked with American missionaries and national pastors to help start more than three hundred churches around the world.

I was happy to talk to Clayton about the new book, and think you'll find the interview and the book helpful.

Back in August I sat down with Mike Harland, Director for Lifeway Worship, to talk through the issues of relevance and reverence in the gathered church's worship. Because I love the church, and hate it when we get distracted from what matters most to God, I decided to share more of my thoughts here on the blog concerning the perennial war over worship.

The reason worship wars exist is because the church thinks it is fighting for something permanent when it is actually temporary. Musical styles and service preferences are like a jacket that can be taken on or off depending upon the temperature. It is used only when needed. Worship as a theological reality is not fit for such pedestrian arguments. It is to exist in the heart of all people-- and it does. When we think we're debating styles and techniques and forms, we are really defending our own affections and deeply felt preferences. Most often we defend what is nostalgic rather than what is helpful. It's no wonder then that even attempts at ceasefires result in more fuel for the blaze.

I will lay my cards on the table: I was not raised in the church or in the subculture of the Bible Belt. I came to Christ at a later age and when I began my ministry it was with the urban poor in Buffalo, New York. I have been called by some "a son of the contemporary church movement." I don't know if that's necessarily true, but I know what it means. I do not have the traditional church DNA in me like so many others I've known, pastored, and appreciated.

So, it could be that it is hard for me to get inside the shoes of the traditional worship advocate. (Though ancient church music has now become a favorite on my iPod.) Or it could be that having come from an irreligious home in addition to my travels observing the worship practices of global Christians that I have a different perspective.

I won't deny I have personal preferences. For instance, it is clear that country and western music is not of God. (That's another joke; don't tell my friend Ricky Skaggs I said that.) Nevertheless, what I try to do is what we all should do in matters of preference and praise-- commit to the reality that worship is not ultimately about us.

And because worship is not about us, I don't think we end the worship wars in our local congregations merely by compromise. Compromise is noble; consensus is better. A truce just gets 100% of our church worshiping at 50%. It is not compromise we want, but unity. So how do we get to that ever-elusive goal, that aim Jesus laid out for us in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17? Here are five ideas.

1. Rally around Truth, Not a Truce

In the same prayer Jesus prayed that His church would be one (John 17:21-22), He prayed that they would be sanctified by the truth of God's word (John 17:17).

When we come at the worship discussion we have to back up a bit and adopt a good theological framework for our conversations, because the church too often leaps to the assumption that "music = worship." Or perhaps we frame it a bit more broadly and think in terms of a "worship service." But the truth is that worship occurs in the whole of life. We are never not worshiping; our affections are always oriented somewhere or to someone. Minimizing worship to a one hour experience on Sunday monrings, or further down to merely the time of music in that experience, means many of us only dedicate thirty minutes of each week to worship of Christ. When we practice this minimization, it means that the rest of the time we're worshiping someone else (usually ourselves).

It is a harsh accusation to make, but as our music and production skills have increased, our worship has suffered because we have engaged in them as the outpouring of self-worship. So we must remember that worship is for every hour of every day of every week. Our lives are to be oriented to the worship of God. And the chances are, if we thought of worship that way, we would not put so much personal stake in hearing our favorite style of music on Sunday mornings. The entirety of our worship would not be loaded into that slice of time.

Holding personal preferences loosely allows for greater unity in the body and advancement of God's mission. The truth God seeks is that we rally to the cause of His glory among the nations rather than deciding is we will have two hymns and three choruses or three hymns and two choruses this Sunday.

2. Acknowledge that Preferences are Personal

I have witnessed the angst around worship music firsthand. I think that in some churches, a pastor could get away with preaching heresy so long as he's cool, funny, and has a good video clip. But if a pastor tries to alter the worship style, it is time to start looking for a new job.

This works both ways, for the favorers of so-called "contemporary praise" and the adherents to more traditional worship music. Neither appears willing to give up ground, and they have planted their flags in either Relevance (for the contemporary folks) or Reverence (for the traditionalists). (Hence, the name of the dialog in the video at the top of this post.)

In many churches where a worship war is brewing or is in outright conflict, one group perceives themselves to be pushing forward toward the next generation (relevance) while another is trying to pull back to a once-honored method (reverence). One group thinks contemporary music or a more casual style will suit the modern generation and appeal more to the lost. Meanwhile the other group thinks all of that is just worldly compromise and, furthermore, arrogant to casually dismiss the styles that have served the church well, in some cases, for hundreds of years.

When either of these scenarios occurs it is usually because we have elevated our preferences to the level of principles. We are "taking a stand" for something important: our own comfort, convenience, and concerns. And all the while we're trying to give God his due or the lost people in the pew it turns out we're really just making worship about us.

3. Realize that Relevance and Reverence Are Not at War with Each Other

What those who push forward should realize is that relevance is not a goal; it is a tool. It is not the end, but one (of many) means to the end. Relevance for relevance's sake never helped anybody. Playing a shocking song at the front of your Easter service may get headlines and upset religious people, but that's about all it does. Having rock music fans think you're a cool church is not the "win" you're really looking for. A smart church will be culturally discerning, but always biblically-driven first.

On the other hand, the traditionalists' placement of reverence on external styles is also wrongheaded. Reverence is not first and foremost an outward expression. It is a quality of the heart. Of course, it results in outward expressions, but take the story of David dancing before the Ark, for example. His free mode of worship was a scandal to Saul's daughter Michal, who was watching from afar. David's heart was turned reverently to the Lord, and this provoked a physical celebration from him. It sure looked irreverent to another. Many times today shouting, clapping, and dancing are seen as disorderly or irreverent or self-indulgent, but all three of those modes of worship are seen in Scripture though curiously absent from "reverent" worship services.

At the heart of many of our worship wars is, sad to say, idolatry. Our worship of things other than God drives the way we contend for ways to worship God. When reverence is equated with austerity, it can reveal an idolization of familiarity and comfort and control. When relevance is equated with a production carte blanche or "freedom of expression," it can reveal an idolization of trendiness and self and showmanship. Both relevance and reverence can cloak idolatry of cultural forms and expressions.

In both cases, what is revealed is an idolatry of music. And music is just... well, music. As my colleague Mike Harland, president of LifeWay Worship has said, "You will never achieve spiritual goals with a musical means." We see music as important in Scripture but never a particular form or function as necessary for discipleship. And never does God dictate a particular style, rhyme pattern, or lyrical format.

4. Embrace Humility

The evangelical church needs a ceasefire on fighting over cultural forms. A focus on biblical meanings will add a healthy dose of humility to our churches.

When I was young in the ministry, I was charged with ministry to both youth and seniors (go figure). One day I was going to lead worship at a nursing home. So, I took my guitar. I'll never forget this 92 year old woman, Miss Langley, who put her hand on my arm and said "Don't worry about the guitar, young man, we're just gonna sing and you can sing with us." I was bringing a relevance they didn't need, and I had to be mature enough to see the hindrance I was about to become.

Imagine would what happen if worship warriors actually took on the attitude of Jesus (per Phillipians 2) and did not regard their agendas as something to be grasped but instead took on the posture of servanthood. What if we (per Romans 12:10) actually tried to outdo one another showing honor? Humility is a "win" for every worshiper.

5. Cultivate Consensus, Not Compromise

We have to be mature enough to worship in different ways, even in someone else's ways. The so-called "blended service" has a typical formula of two songs for me and two songs for you and one song for that other guy. I think it is a sign of carnality and a lack of community in worship. Many times the blended worship service doesn't please anybody but maybe the pastor who has given up trying to cultivate consensus. The blended service is an equal opportunity to anger everyone. It can be a sad compromise.

I also believe we need to be careful about multiple services with specialized genres. What is the motivation? Is the division a compromise? We need to be cautious about pandering to the consumeristic side of Western Christianity. We need to ask ourselves what our motivation is, and be honest with our answer. If we're being mission-focused, that's a good and worthy goal. But if we're market-focused (and Christians are the market), we are off track.

If you go the blended or alternative service route, please do so not because you made a truce, but because you stuffed your egos and decided to glorify God for the sake of reaching your community in a language they understand; Spanish, biker, redneck, liturgical, or whatever.

Do the traditionalists appreciate the contemporary songs? Do the relevantists appreciate the hymns? Do they love each other? Do they see these differing forms as acceptable forms of worship?

Pastored well, a healthy congregation will seek consensus on the positives of God's glory and mission rather than settle for compromise on the negatives of personal preferences and styles. A church in consensus would rather have Jesus than the hymn "I'd Rather Have Jesus." A church in consensus will sing of God's greatness rather than need "How Great is Our God" as their anthem. Music will not bring unity in of itself. Worship brings unity. So long as it is the worship of Jesus.

I have a new article featured at Christianity Today's Building Church Leaders website that focuses on how a local church should discover their particular calling to its larger community. You can read it below. Be sure to check out the BCL site. It has a lot of helpful resources for pastors and church leaders.

Discerning Your Church's Call to Ministry

How does a church discern its call to ministry--creating ministry space that lines up with its mission and vision? Often believers and churches seem to be waiting for God to strike them with a lightning bolt, to reveal what he wants them to do through some spectacular event. But God isn't a genie who pops out of his bottle if we rub it hard enough. A church that waits passively finds itself beset with ministry paralysis.

Then there are the churches that show a degree of life and energy and have significant percentages of the local body engaged in ministry, yet what they do is routine and ineffective. Call it "ministry calcification." Maybe what they are doing was effective five years ago or even last year, but communities can change rapidly. Many churches are ministering to people who have long ago left the community. The missional church constantly assesses what God is doing in a community and what needs are emerging--and adjusts its ministries accordingly.

Do I believe God reveals himself and gives us direction in life? Yes, absolutely. But I also believe he reveals himself more specifically as we obey the commands he has already given us. In other words, God will show us how he wants our church to minister to the community when we act on the directives he has already given us.

Four of the last things Jesus said to his disciples in his final days on earth are a good place for his followers and his churches to seek direction:

Continue reading Discerning Your Church's Call to Ministry.

This morning, I am meeting with some leaders from The Anglican Mission in the Americas. I have a great appreciation of the AMiA folks and am glad they have come in so we could spend the morning talking about church planting and evangelism.

I had the opportunity to keynote one of the early Anglican Mission in America meetings. It was an amazing thing to see hundreds of Anglicans, gathered under the Bishop of Rwanda, worshiping together and talking about God's global mission. And, it has been good to keep in touch with a few of the bishops and pastors.

Today, we are talking about the new Anglican organization in North America, called The Anglican Church in North America, and their plan to start 1000 new churches in the next five years. That is a VERY robust goal for such a new (and relatively small) denomination.

For those of you who do not follow the drama of "all things Anglican," the Anglican journey has been a challenging one over the last few decades.

Wikipedia has a helpful article on the Anglican realignment. Be sure to visit the Wikipedia article for much more information, but here is an introduction:

Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under different oversight within the Anglican Communion. The movement is primarily active in provinces traditionally part of The Episcopal Church (United States) and the Anglican Church of Canada. The conventions of four dioceses of the Episcopal Church voted in 2007 and 2008 to leave the Episcopal Church and join Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America. Twelve other jurisdictions with approximately one hundred thousand members formed the Anglican Church in North America on December 3-4, 2008, which was set up to create a separate ecclesiastical structure within the United States. The Anglican Church of Nigeria declared itself in communion with the new church in March 2009 and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has recognized it as well.

Two major events which contributed to this movement were the 2002 decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to authorise a rite of blessing same-sex unions; and the ratification by the general convention of the Episcopal Church in the USA of the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire the following year.

The movement differs from previous ones in that Anglicans are seeking to establish different ecclesiastical arrangements within the Anglican Communion rather than separating themselves from it. Some Anglican Communion churches, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and the Southern Cone, are seeking to accommodate them.

A number of parishes that are part of the Anglican realignment have severed ties with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and associated themselves with bishops from other national Anglican churches or provinces. Some other American dioceses and parishes (approximately 800 out of some 7,000 Episcopal Church parishes) still officially remain within those two provinces of the Anglican Communion whilst exploring their future options.

Please be praying for these meetings today as we talk about how to advance the mission of God through the planting of new churches.

A recent study by LifeWay Research in partnership with the Cornerstone Knowledge Network showed a correlation between ministry expansion and church growth. Seven types of expansion were included in the survey:

• Building new or additional ministry space at the same site where your church is located.
• Building a new facility at a new site.
• Adding an additional worship service or venue on site.
• Adding an additional worship service or venue off site.
• Beginning to offer streaming video of worship services or teaching on the Internet.
• Directly participating in helping start a new church or churches.
• Merging with another church.

Mark Kelly summarizes the findings:

Of these seven types of ministry expansion, the pastors surveyed indicated that adding an additional worship service or venue on site is most closely related to higher growth in attendance, followed by building new or additional ministry space at the same site where the church is located. Churches that expanded in those two ways experienced significantly higher levels of growth in average worship attendance over a five-year period, according to the pastors surveyed.

It's an interesting study worth looking at. Read the study first at Lifeway Research and at The Christian Post.

This study actually includes both opinion questions and the reporting of facts by pastors.

The fact questions included asking pastors if their church had made any of the 7 changes in the last 5 years. We also asked their current average worship attendance and their attendance 5 years ago. The recollection of the church's attendance 5 years ago could be off slightly for some. After all, this was a phone survey, but it should be close in most cases. Overall, we do consider the number of growing churches reported in this study to be a little higher than when annually reported data is available for comparison.

We ran statistical tests on these facts as reported and the first point in the story is related to these tests. The title we released the information with was stated in the negative, "Ministry expansion doesn't automatically lead to attendance growth." The fact is that causality is not something that we can test at all. However, since it is safe for us to rule out causality if there is not even a statistical relationship we felt comfortable stating this as we did in our release.

The opinion questions show that more than two-thirds of Protestant pastors agree (strongly or somewhat) that 5 of the ministry changes we tested "lead to additional growth." Pastors whose churches have actual made that type of change are more likely to agree, and this was true of all 7 we tested.

We wanted to see what the rest of the pastors believe.

It is interesting to note that all pastors did not agree without hesitation. A look at the PowerPoint that is now up on the LifeWay Research website shows that more pastors somewhat agree than strongly agree in all cases. Also, keep in mind our questions did not ask whether the pastors believe this is the only thing that leads to growth. For example, I can understand why many pastors did not want to disagree that you get some visitors when you open a new building and that some stick around.

The statistical tests we ran that showed a real relationship between two of the changes and growth also prove that only a small portion of the attendance growth is explained by the items we tested. There indeed are other things that lead to growth and some of the spiritual things related to growth would never be able to be tested through research.

Jump into the comments below and share your thoughts and experiences. Has expansion of your church led to, or been a result of, growth.

One of my favorite troublemakers is Frank Viola. When George Barna "entered" house church world (through his writings, at least), one of my comments was that he had not actually connected with any of the people in house church world. In other words, Barna was saying all the things house church people say, but not providing any solutions or awareness of the house church movement. And, I found Revolution to be a relatively unhelpful book for that reason (and several other theological reasons I have stated elsewhere).

In the follow-up book, Barna seems to have jumped whole hog into the house church world with none other than Frank Viola. Together they published Pagan Christianity which riled a lot of people up (me included) and not just because of the not-so-subtle title. For what it is worth, I think New Testament scholar Ben Witherington did a great job in his series on the book (starting here) and Frank was gracious in his response.

Last year, I led a seminar at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary on "The Future of Church and Mission." Earlier this year I turned that same lecture into an article on the future of the church and its mission for Enrichment Journal, a publication of the Assemblies of God. Here is a condensed version of the article, "Writing on the Wall."

In the movie, Lonesome Dove, Danny Glover portrays Joshua Deets, a cattle-drive scout whose job is to ride ahead of the drive and survey the terrain. Largely responsible for the success and safety of the drive, Deets would inform the team of any obstacles, dangers, enemies, or resources that lay ahead. By assessing the upcoming path, he could help the trail boss make an informed decision about how to navigate the way to the trail drive's destination.

Deets' role is reminiscent of the tribe of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 -- men who "understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take" (NLT). Today, church leaders must act as scouts, fervently asking the Lord for discernment into how they can best practice biblically faithful ministry in their cultures and contexts.

Here are the facts: North America is the only continent in the world where the church is not growing. In North America, the church is in decline. Some even claim it is dying. Most denominations -- including evangelical denominations -- are shrinking.

While the global spread of Christianity and its explosion in the Global South needs to encourage us, our leaders must ask themselves: What must the North American church become and do in this season of decline? The answers all revolve around the gospel.

Continue reading Writing on the Wall.

Yesterday, I received an email from Alan Nelson, telling me about some changes in his role. Alan is moving to California and moving from full-time editor to part-time Executive Editor of Rev! Magazine. He will be doing more speaking and writing now and you can find out more about him at www.alanenelson.com.

Anyway, all that to say that it reminded me of a recent article I published with the magazine, I think it was in the last issue. If you are a subscriber, you have already read the article. But, if not, let me share it below.

The theme of the article is change. This has been a "change" week for me. I am right now at Ridgecrest, NC where I have been teaching on the subject for the last few days. And, I just started reading Who Stole My Church, which is, so far, and excellent fictional parable of a church struggling with change.

When Mike Dodson and I wrote Comeback Churches, we did so to help churches change to reach their community. And, yes, it requires change. You cannot do the same thing and expect different results. However, Alan Nelson at Rev! challenged us with the question: how do you motivate people to make that change. The result is the article below:

Several Christian leaders at the upcoming "Heart Cry for Revival Conference" are asked and answer, "Why is revival needed among Christian leaders at this point in history?"

• John Avant: "We have become almost completely internalized. We have turned on each other and lost our way. Our churches often simply mirror our leaders. Beginning with me, we need a renewal of love, humility, holiness, and deep compassion for the lost."

• Nancy Leigh DeMoss: "As go the shepherds, so goes the flock. The church desperately needs leaders who are holy, Spirit-filled, prayerful, whole-hearted, anointed men of the Word and servants and lovers of Christ."

Continue reading Why Leaders Need Revival.

On Saturday, I was speaking to the General Association of General Baptist Churches in a very rural part of Missouri.

The General Baptist denomination is an Arminian Baptist denomination. In many ways, they are similar to my own denomination, but they do not hold to the idea of "eternal security"-- or the idea that (in popular terms) once you are a believer you can't "undo" that. This view is held by Wesleyans, many Pentecostals, etc.

Over lunch, we reminsced a bit of the Second Great Awakening history.

Today I am in Bowling Green, KY teaching at First Baptist Church, Bowling Green for the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

Here is a photo of the conference from inside the sanctuary of First Baptist. There were about 350 people at the conference and the KBC announced that they are creating a process around our book, Comeback Churches. You can download the PowerPoint here.

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Now, you keen students of history know that First Baptist is an important part of the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.

And, since I like to give a "little extra" on the blog...

First Baptist was a key part of what is knows as the Landmark Baptist movement.

Wikipedia explains Landmarkism:

Most theologians and historians who have dealt with Landmarkism have agreed that the following ecclesiological convictions were inherent to the system:

The exclusive validity of Baptist churches

Although different champions of the Landmark Baptist cause have identified different required characteristics, or "marks," that validate a legitimate Baptist church, all varieties of Landmarkism stipulate that legitimate Baptist churches are the only legitimate churches. According to Landmarkism, congregations of other denominational varieties are merely religious gatherings, or "societies," with no claim to the title "church."

The invalidity of non-Baptist churchly acts

Landmark Baptists have refused to recognize as valid any baptisms or ordinations performed in circumstances other than under the auspices of a Baptist church. Thus, Landmark Baptists have declined to allow non-Baptists to preach in Landmark Baptist churches and have required prospective members who have received "pedobaptism" or "alien immersion" to be baptized by a Baptist church before receiving them into membership. Expressed as a syllogism, the Landmark Baptist argument is:

Major premise: To be valid, Christian ordinations and baptisms must be performed by a valid New Testament church.

Minor premise: Only valid Baptist churches are valid New Testament churches.

Conclusion: Therefore, only ordinations and baptisms performed by valid Baptist churches are valid Christian ordinations and baptisms.

The leaders of the Landmark movement were at times called "The Great Triumvirate," made up of J.R. Graves, James Madison Pendleton, and Amos Cooper Dayton.

James Pendleton was the pastor of First Baptist in Bowling Green. His work, Old Landmark Reset, is a foundational document for Southern Baptist Landmarkism. You can download the entire book here, and be sure to note the subtitle: "Ought Baptists to Invite Pedobaptists to Preach in Their Pulpits?"

However, Pendleton did not hold the same views as some other Landmarkers, particularly on "Baptist successionism."

Baptist Successionism

Some Landmark Baptists (not all) believed that the true church could be traced back all the way to John the Baptist. They wanted a view of "succession" that focused on baptism (hence Baptist Successionism). Some saw this as a response to the view of Apostolic Succession, or the belief that Peter ordained (Pope) Linus ordained (Pope) Anacletus... eventually ordained the current pope. I tend to think it had more to do with the Stone Campbell movement's "restoration" views-- Baptists wanted to show they had nothing to "restore." They were always here.

Landmark Baptists believed that the early Christians baptized each other properly. But, they believed, error soon crept in on issues such as baptism. But, some believed there was always a remnant, a "trail of blood." So, the Montanists baptized the Donatists, who baptized the Paulicians... eventually baptizing Southern Baptists.

You can click here to download the chart with all the details. (As a young pastor, I once preached at a rural North Carolina church with this very chart painted on the wall.)

James Milton Carroll, decades later, wrote The Trail of Blood, telling the full story from the Landmark Baptist successionism perspective. You can download the whole book/pamphlet here. Over 2 million copies were published and its influence on the denomination was profound.

Some people mistakenly equate successionism with Landmark ecclesiology although, as with Pendleton, one can be the latter without being the former.

So What is Landmark Baptist Ecclesiology?

Theopedia explains in more detail:

The impetus for the movement was the publication of Pendleton's An Old Landmark Reset in 1854, and the Cotton Grove meeting of Baptists in 1851. The meeting at the Cotton Grove Baptist Church near Jackson, Tennessee sought to answer five questions:

"(1.) Can Baptists with their principles on the Scriptures, consistently recognize those societies not organized according to the Jerusalem church, but possessing different government, different officers, a different class of members, different ordinances, doctrines and practices as churches of Christ?

(2.) Ought they to be called gospel churches or churches in a religious sense?

(3.) Can we consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural bodies as gospel ministers?

(4.) Is it not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into our pulpits or by any other act that would or could be construed as such recognition?

(5.) Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity who not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to his commandments but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?"

The emphasis of Landmarkism is:

-that the church is local and visible only;

-that the church has had a continuous existence since its organization by Jesus before Pentecost until the present day (sometimes called Baptist successionism or church perpetuity);

-that the Great Commission was given to the church (local churches) only; and

-that baptism and the Lord's supper are church ordinances and are only valid when performed by authority of a New Testament (Baptist) church.

So, today I spent that day at a church that was part of a movement... interesting indeed.

Although I am not teaching history today, I thought you might find it interesting!

Here is a picture of the baptistry. It is big-- very big. I am guessing 8 people could fit in there. There is a dome over it and it is the most distinct feature in the sanctuary (which, makes sense, considering the info above).

Go ahead... what caption would you suggest for this picture from the ComeBack Challenge conference? (picture: Tim Gentry)

Rick Warren & Ed Stetzer

Updated:

Thanks for the great submissions. There are many great ones, some good ones, and a few, well, weird ones.

Of course, there must be a winner and a prize for such a contest. Below are six winners and each will recieve a free copy of my new book (Compelled by Love) in a few weeks. The winners were based on an intense judgng process-- they made me laugh.

And the winners are........................................

Lance Ford:
"Geeze Lord, why do you tell Rick all the good stuff?"

Luke Britt:
goatees + wavy hair = missional

Michael:
Rick: ----
Ed: Boy, this cardboard cutout of Rick Warren sure is life-like. I'd better take it home with me.

James Cross:
Ed thinks to himself, "How many times do I have to tell Ricky, that is not how you spell TULIP?"

Todd Rhoades:
Ed's thinking, "There's got to be a good book idea on that paper somewhere!"

SJ (Steve) Camp:
WARREN
CONFIDENTIAL FROM STAFFER:

RICK: NEW DATA - EARTH HAS COOLED .67 DEGREES IN THE PAST 100 YEARS. DON'T MENTION THE GLOBAL WARMING THING... IT WAS A HOAX.

ED
OH NO... THAT'S GOTTA HURT! HOW CAN I TURN THIS INTO A POSITIVE MISSIONAL MOMENT? HMMM.

So, here I am in California teaching a seminar built around my book, Comeback Churches.

It is called the "The Comeback Challenge."

It is a great conference so far-- Nelson Searcy, Voddie Baucham, and several other pastors. You can download the PowerPoint I used at www.comebackchurches.com.

And, who shows up to teach the last session of the Comeback Challenge? Rick Warren. He steals my last session and starts talking about my stuff!!! UGH.

Can't he write his own stuff?!?!?

Last month, it was announced he was speaking at the Exponential Conference, again following me around. Sigh.

Stop stalking me Rick!

He's OK at teaching my stuff... and he even brought a little of his own. Grin.

We are doing dinner tonight and then a panel for a smaller group.

Here are a few quotes (written on the fly, but I think they are pretty accurate) from when Rick spoke.

You want to make them doers of the word and not just hearers.

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Jesus led people from "come and see" to "deny yourself and take up the cross" to "eat my body and drink my blood." That takes a while and it takes a plan.

Some of you are "come and see preachers�? and your people need you to lead people to "eat my body and drink my blood.�? They need you to lead them to harder truths. You need a plan to move people to high commitment of "denying yourself" and "eat my body and drink my blood.�?

Some of you are "eat my body and drink my blood preachers�? and you need a plan to help people "come and see.�? Church is all about bringing people closer and closer to Christ.
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Saddleback may be the most spiritual mature church in the nation... we have more people in small groups than we have in Sunday morning worship... we have 13842 tithers... over 14,000 people having a daily quiet time... the over 15,000 people who are serving in ministry...
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Teaching a sermon will not disciple people... it is not enough.
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Spiritual growth is incarnational... it's Christ in you... it is helping people let Christ live through them... Christ in you the hope of Glory.
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There are three dangers: hedonism, materialism, and secularism-- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

If you have been in the minsitry 10 to 20 years and kept your pants on, I honor you.
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Prosperity gospel: don't ever put an adjective in front of gospel: Prosperity gospel, social gospel.

The gospel is good news: Christ died and was resurrected for our sins.
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[Referring to the temptation of Jesus] The plan was that Jesus would be worshiped because he died on a cross not because he jumped off the temple.

I will be in New Orleans today. I plan to yell at David Meacham for not telling me this news. Then, I will speak at this conference:

If you are in the area, come on by. Click here for more information.

One of the forgotten "spiritual awakenings" is the Fulton Street Revival. Today is the 150th anniversary of that start of that outpouring.

If I am doing the math correctly, about 3% of the population became Christ followers during this awakening. That would be the equivalent of 10 million people becoming followers of Jesus today.

The North American Mission Board has a video about Fulton Street here.

I think the most challenging job in ministry may be leading stagnant churches to reengage their communities for the gospel.

If you are near Marion, IN tomorrow come join us and we will talk more about it.

And, I have found that many discouraged pastors come to events like these-- pray that they will receive a fresh wind from the Lord.