Judgment and Mercy in New Orleans August 27, 2010

I wrote this for my student newspaper during my senior year of college after a trip to Louisiana to assist with hurricane relief. I’m reposting it here in honor of the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on the Gulf Coast on 8/29/05 and as a reminder that God is at work in even in the worst disasters we witness around the world.

“Everybody keeps saying that God sent this thing as an act of judgment on our city. I think it was really an act of mercy – there are people who have been praying for something like this for years – just waiting for an opportunity to get out of a bad situation.”

These level-headed words from the wife of a New Orleans Baptist Theologial Seminary student didn’t blend with their context.

She spoke them while inspecting her salt-encrusted Chevy Cavalier to the background noise of six men from Bryan College stripping appliances and furniture from her neighbor’s apartment.

I never associated mercy with destruction. The mold-blackened walls, rancid refrigerators and pervasive stench of flooded homes more closely matched my conception of hell than of God’s love. Pausing from our grim task to hear her wisdom sharpened the meaning of our work there.

Before heading to Louisiana for a week of ministry, I wondered how I could show God’s love to people who thought He Himself had destroyed their lives. The words of the seminary wife caught me off guard with the simple truth that God was behind the whole story of Hurricane Katrina, in ways that I never conceived.

New Orleans needed judgment. The city of gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes and revelers, was ripe for sentence to be passed. Gulfport and Biloxi in neighboring Mississippi weren’t much better. Then again, neither is any place on this earth. What cities and towns don’t play host to people who are financially irresponsible, those who depend on alcohol and drugs, the sexually promiscuous and self-absorbed partygoers? “Normal” places carefully pass over these woes as those who partake of them deftly cover their tracks to avoid condemnation.

New Orleans wore her sins on her sleeve. Did we rush to proclaim the wrath of God on the Big Easy because she deserved it or because we were glad that our own closet hadn’t been blown open by the storm?

Too often we mistake nudges from the Almighty as blows from His sword. We forget that He works in mysterious ways. If He wanted to destroy the city, He could have – beyond the shadow of a doubt. Looking at roofs crushed by trees, windows exploded by 130-mph winds and 10-foot-high piles of trash that were once the contents of a home, it’s very easy to think of judgment.

Looking deeper, mercy overtakes judgment as the theme of this saga. A city of 500,000 people losing only a little more than 1,000 to a direct hit by a monstrous hurricane for which it was almost completely unprepared is mercy. Letting people see the Church do the work of restoring lives wrecked by the storm when the government bungled its attempt at the same is mercy. Leading National Guard soldiers and Red Cross relief workers to salvation is mercy. Allowing the terrible beauty of a hurricane to thrash our lives so that we wake from the slumber of Christless apathy is mercy.

New Orleans needed mercy. We all need mercy. God loves to show us His gracious care. We’re just slow to pick up His frequency.

New Orleans was not destroyed. Today, just a few weeks later, it is bustling with the activity of reconstruction. The South isn’t about to let the bosom of its culture wash by the wayside. More importantly, Christ isn’t about to let hurting people go untouched through this upheaval. I’ve never seen as positive an outpouring of energy and resources from the Church in my lifetime.

Those of us who could go offer tangible help did, some more than once, and I’m sure many will continue to go for months to come. Those who could give to the cause gave generously; so much so that there has been an overabundance of supplies for the refugees. The hand of the Lord has been active the whole time. It touched refugees herded into shelters with hot meals and listening ears. It touched uninsured homeowners by preparing their homes for reconstruction free of charge. It touched people living in makeshift trailer parks with welcoming embraces and simple services. It touched relief workers from Bryan with the strength, patience and generosity we needed to be that hand to the people of southeast Louisiana.

Years from now, when we look back on this incredible story of God’s redeeming mercy, no one will think of it as a judgment from on high. We can’t waste the gift He has given us. If we allow our lives to return to “normal” after the dust of all this settles, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will not be the destruction of the Gulf Coast but the destruction of spiritual fervor by comfortable circumstances.

The words of the prophets linger in the background. “‘I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not turn to me,’ declares the Lord.” (Hag. 2:17).

God got our attention and allowed us to rebuild His Body with a righteous work ethic. To Him be the glory, even (or, should I say, especially) when we can’t immediately see His purposes.

Posted by Justin Lonas

…An Unworthy Manner July 20, 2010

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged” (1 Cor. 12:26-31).

In this passage, Paul is writing in the context of a conflict among the Corinthian believers as to the physical abuse of the Lord’s table during communion. Certain believers were gorging themselves on the bread and wine to the point of drunkenness (12:21), leaving others out of the celebration altogether. Obviously, this would qualify as an “unworthy manner,” tantamount to taking God’s name in vain. The part that confuses us is the pronouncement of sickness and death as a consequence of these actions (12:30). To our sanitized sense of church, this seems very “Old Testament”, and out of character with the grace represented by communion.

Passages like this bring us face to face with an imagined conflict between holiness and grace. Christ came to fulfill the law, but the law is not a stand-alone. The law served to show us our sin in relation to God’s uncompromising holiness. When Christ’s sacrifice fulfilled the law, He allowed his blood to cover our sins and permit us to fellowship with Him in His righteousness. The holiness of God is unchanging, before, during, and after the law.

When those who claimed to be brothers and sisters in Christ trampled one another and indulged in the Lord’s supper with a self-focused, gluttonous attitude, they were spitting on Christ’s sacrifice. They were casting aside the significance of the observance for their own gain, forgetting who God is. They were taking Him in vain, demonstrating that, at best, they had not allowed the Spirit to reign in their hearts since professing Christ, or, at worst, that they did not know Him at all.

Does the same principle and punishment apply to us today? Our modernistic worldview has so sequestered disease and death in a scientific construct that, if it is occurring, we aren’t noticing. The principle, however, holds true in any instance of worship (read: life as a believer). Whenever we seek to magnify ourselves (whether openly or only in the attitude of our hearts), we are not honoring Christ. When we do it under the guise of celebrating Him, we are inviting judgment. When we become involved in the church to improve our social standing or to feel good about ourselves, when we do good deeds for the recognition of men, when we give of time and money for the wrong reasons, we make light of God – we take Him in vain. We invite judgment on ourselves in this way because we are tarnishing the name of Christ. Rather, we should, as Paul commanded the Corinthians, “. . . proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Posted by Justin Lonas

Who is a Leader? June 30, 2010

My apologies for only breaking the 3-week post drought with a non-original piece, but it’s too good to pass up.

Tim Challies, who you may recognize as a periodic contributer of articles to Disciple, raises the issue of just who is qualified to be a leader in the Church (and the dangers associated with following after the wrong leaders) with a masterful exposition of Jeremiah 23.

Don’t let this one slip by you today.

Posted by Justin Lonas

Of Politics and Faith May 3, 2010

As is often the case in times of economic stress, political life in America becomes much more vocal and more polar than usual. In such a climate, political viewpoints can make odd bedfellows. That certainly seems to be the case with last week’s news that Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck would be delivering the commencement address at Liberty University.

Beck is, by all counts, a devout Mormon who finds his conservative politics embedded in his religion’s teachings. Liberty University, of course, is the living legacy of Jerry Falwell, whose name is nearly synonymous with Christian involvement in conservative politics. While at a policy level, Mr. Beck and the leadership of Liberty share much in common, their underlying faiths are anything but similar.

Under ordinary circumstances, it would be unthinkable to have a vocal member of a non-Christian religion (though most Mormons I’ve met would disagree with that characterization, we know theirs to be a false gospel) to speak, with official blessing, to the students of a distinctively Christian university. Somehow, however, these believers came to the conclusion that the times dictate political association to be of equal or greater importance than orthodox faith.

It seems as though Liberty continues to struggle much in the same way most American Christians do with politics.

At the risk of oversimplification, we tend to take one of two approaches in this arena, both of which are damaging to the Gospel. 1) We cherish our religious freedom and we believe that it is the government’s job to enforce morality in the culture, or 2) We cherish the work of Christ and we believe it is the government’s job to do justice and love mercy.

When we succumb to the first approach, we show a watching world that Christianity is not as important in society as general conservatism and that we don’t trust God to redeem men from the inside out as He has always done—as Jared Wilson put it, the message of the Gospel is not “behave”. When we fall to the second, we show the world that Christianity is less about personal sacrifice and more about making sure someone else takes up their cross and gives involuntarily to the poor and needy through taxes. We show that we don’t trust God to move His Church to live out His kingdom. In either case, we show a willingness to compromise certain key teachings of Christ in order to advance a temporal agenda.

Both approaches belie a fundamental distrust of God’s view of things—if there is one theme that Jesus hit over and over again during His ministry, it was that His kingdom was not of this world. He had eternity in view in everything He did, and Christian involvement in politics is, at a grand level, idolatry of the present and visible over the permanent and invisible.

The reason why both camps struggle so much in modern America, I think, is because the Bible is eerily silent on democracy. Jesus said, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25). Paul said, “Be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God…Render to all what is due them…” (Rom. 13:1; 7), and “I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

Scripture’s stance on government assumes absolute despotism as the norm and that citizenry has but two choices—obedience and disobedience. The concept of representative government of, by, and for the people (cherished though it may be by most Americans) is not given a category in Scripture. We struggle, in short, because we are torn between the submission and prayer commanded of us and the very tangible ability to change things through political action.

This doesn’t answer the intractable problems we face, but it is something I have to keep in mind daily to keep me focused on the true reality of Christ and my true calling as a believer. Politics has never changed a person’s heart or brought eternal salvation to anyone.

Posted by Justin Lonas

Better Late than Never April 6, 2010

One of our readers, Dan Simmons, had this to say in a comment about the church and social networking sites:

“We are looking at putting our church on Facebook…most comments I have received from others are positive, what do you guys think? Do you have any lessons learned, or advice for a chruch doing this? We have a website, but people do not use the blog feature, and I thought we would try FB as a blog and communication tool. Appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks.”

Below is what I wrote back to Dan in his comment. Since we’ve never had a blog post about this, I thought I’d re-post it here. Many others have already written on this (most of them probably with a lot more experience at it than us), but it’s better to be late to the table than to miss dinner entirely.

Facebook and other social networking sites seem to be the “hub” of today’s informal communication. Whereas we used to tell our friends things around the water cooler or over the phone, now we post them to our profiles–as you said, even blogs don’t get much traffic anymore compared with social networking sites. Many businesses have jumped on this bandwagon, using Facebook as a way to connect their customers to each other and draw them deeper into their market with coupons, contests, and special offers. We have our own Facebook page which hasn’t taken off quite as I’d hoped yet, though it is opening more connections with readers than a totally one-sided model.

For churches, Facebook can be a blessing and a curse. Putting yourself out there definitely can open doors of ministry, by providing visitors and members an easy way to connect with church staff and other members and for you to communicate with members about upcoming events, etc. However, it can easily devolve into pettiness if you aren’t controlling the content of what people post.

I think you should move forward with the idea, but here are a few guidelines to remember:
1) Set the tone. Make the Facebook page feel like an extension of your church, with an emphasis on Christ, Scripture, discipleship & ministry. Get involved because this is a new way to further the cause of Christ, not because it’s “hip” to be on Facebook. Relevance should never be our goal as believers–becoming and making disciples of Jesus should always be our focus.

2) Control the content–gently. You can edit settings to control how much (or how little) you allow “fans” (the equivalent of “friends” for organizations) to post to the page. The best policy is to allow user feedback–that’s what makes Facebook different from a static website–just don’t let it get away from you. Check the page often, and if any comment threads or discussions are going in a poor direction, you have the ability as the page administrator to remove them. You want to facilitate healthy, spiritual interaction through the page, not serve as just another place for gossip or complaining.

3) Take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. You want to make sure that you use your page to impress upon those who visit it that the church (and the pastor) are sinners saved by God’s great grace. Don’t use the page as a platform for moralizing, but turn people’s attention to the Lord. It’s okay to “be real” on Facebook within the context of pointing readers to Christ.

4) Don’t let it stop there. If visitors never make it past your Facebook page to a real interaction with you or members of your church, it’s not doing its job. “Community” is a word that gets thrown around a lot in Church circles today, and Facebook can be a way to create a pseudo-community that makes us feel good without actually accomplishing ministry. Be intentional about pursuing further conact with the people you may meet through the page, invite them to church if they’re local, and certainly take every opportunity to magnify the name of Christ. Used wisely, Facebook and its ilk can provide a great opportunity to move beyond the four walls of the church, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

The Twofold Great Commission February 24, 2010

The longer I work in ministry, the more I realize that there are two primary tasks for the Church, both encapsulated in Christ’s great commission in Matthew 28:19-20.

The first gets all the airtime, and we are right to be concerned with it: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit.” Loving and being loved by God our Savior should be something we shout from the housetops, but our faith has to go deeper than that to be effectively proclaimed.

The second task, which tends to be somewhat glossed over, provides that depth and balance. “Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you,” doesn’t have the same glamour as missionary work, but is just as crucial to the Church. Without the follow-up work of “training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16) through faithful exposition of Scripture, the work of missions and evangelism loses its way and devolves into a social gospel that is no gospel at all. The work of the Church is founded on both of those tasks, and neither can be accomplished when divorced from the other.

As Kevin Deyoung points out in a blog post about his new book on the Heidelberg Catechism (which is what got me thinking in this direction), “The only thing more difficult than finding the truth is not losing it. What starts out as new and precious becomes plain and old. What begins a thrilling discovery becomes a rote exercise. What provokes one generation to sacrifice and passion becomes in the next generation a cause for rebellion and apathy.”

The Church has to cling to both responsibilities handed to us by Christ in this passage to truly fulfill the commission. Evangelism without training results in shallow believers who are prone to syncretism and may not hold firm in the face of persecution. When we overemphasize training, we can become so insular that we lose touch with the world we have been called to reach. That’s why Christ calls us here to μαθητεύω (mathēteuo), “make disciples,“ unifying the two tasks. 

Making disciples is not hit-and-run witnessing that moves on to the next target as soon as someone has a conversion experience; it is a process. Jesus “made disciples” of the 12 over the course of 3 years of constant interaction! The Greek term means “to enroll as a pupil,” and puts the emphasis of the action on teaching and learning–to make disciples of the nations is to continually teach the truth so that it does not become stale and lifeless to those long acquainted with it. God’s Word is never dull, it is our senses that become dull from our failure to open, explore, engage, and obey it.

Posted by Justin Lonas

What It Means to Lead a Church January 4, 2010

The gist of Kevin DeYoung’s post here would make a tremendous New Year’s resolution for pastors, teachers, and church leaders.