A Call of Christian Conscience

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This declaration has been signed by numerous Christian pastors, leaders, and teachers like Tim Keller, Dinesh D'Souza, Bryan Chapell, and Wayne Grudem. You can sign it too.

HT: Dr. Gaylan Mathiesen

What the Church ought to look like

From the Gospel Coalition's theological vision for ministry:

What is gospel–centered ministry?

It is characterized by:

1. Empowered corporate worship.
   The gospel changes our relationship with God from one of hostility or slavish compliance to one of intimacy and joy. The core dynamic of gospel–centered ministry is therefore worship and fervent prayer. In corporate worship God’s people receive a special life–transforming sight of the worth and beauty of God, and then give back to God suitable expressions of his worth. At the heart of corporate worship is the ministry of the Word. Preaching should be expository (explaining the text of Scripture) and Christ–centered (expounding all biblical themes as climaxing in Christ and his work of salvation). Its ultimate goal, however, is not simply to teach but to lead the hearers to worship, individual and corporate, that strengthens their inner being to do the will of God.
2. Evangelistic effectiveness.
   Because the gospel (unlike religious moralism) produces people who do not disdain those who disagree with them, a truly gospel–centered church should be filled with members who winsomely address people’s hopes and aspirations with Christ and his saving work. We have a vision for a church that sees conversions of rich and poor, highly educated and less educated, men and women, old and young, married and single, and all races. We hope to draw highly secular and postmodern people, as well as reaching religious and traditional people. Because of the attractiveness of its community and the humility of its people, a gospel–centered church should find people in its midst who are exploring and trying to understand Christianity. It must welcome them in hundreds of ways. It will do little to make them “comfortable” but will do much to make its message understandable. In addition to all this, gospel–centered churches will have a bias toward church planting as one of the most effective means of evangelism there is.
3. Counter–cultural community.
   Because the gospel removes both fear and pride, people should get along inside the church who could never get along outside. Because it points us to a man who died for his enemies, the gospel creates relationships of service rather than of selfishness. Because the gospel calls us to holiness, the people of God live in loving bonds of mutual accountability and discipline. Thus the gospel creates a human community radically different from any society around it. Regarding sex, the church should avoid both the secular society’s idolization of sex and traditional society’s fear of it. It is a community which so loves and cares practically for its members that biblical chastity makes sense. It teaches its members to conform their bodily being to the shape of the gospel—abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage and fidelity and joy within. Regarding the family, the church should affirm the goodness of marriage between a man and a woman, calling them to serve God by reflecting his covenant love in life–long loyalty, and by teaching his ways to their children. But it also affirms the goodness of serving Christ as singles, whether for a time or for a life. The church should surround all persons suffering from the fallenness of our human sexuality with a compassionate community and family. Regarding money, the church’s members should engage in radical economic sharing with one another—so “there are no needy among them” (Acts 4:34). Such sharing also promotes a radically generous commitment of time, money, relationships, and living space to social justice and the needs of the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and the economically and physically weak. Regarding power, it is visibly committed to power–sharing and relationship–building among races, classes, and generations that are alienated outside of the Body of Christ. The practical evidence of this is that our local churches increasingly welcome and embrace people of all races and cultures. Each church should seek to reflect the diversity of its local geographical community, both in the congregation at large and in its leadership.
4. The integration of faith and work.
   The good news of the Bible is not only individual forgiveness but the renewal of the whole creation. God put humanity in the garden to cultivate the material world for his own glory and for the flourishing of nature and the human community. The Spirit of God not only converts individuals (e.g., John 16:8) but also renews and cultivates the face of the earth (e.g., Gen 1:2; Psalm 104:30). Therefore Christians glorify God not only through the ministry of the Word, but also through their vocations of agriculture, art, business, government, scholarship—all for God’s glory and the furtherance of the public good. Too many Christians have learned to seal off their faith–beliefs from the way they work in their vocation. The gospel is seen as a means of finding individual peace and not as the foundation of a worldview—a comprehensive interpretation of reality affecting all that we do. But we have a vision for a church that equips its people to think out the implications of the gospel on how we do carpentry, plumbing, data–entry, nursing, art, business, government, journalism, entertainment, and scholarship. Such a church will not only support Christians’ engagement with culture, but will also help them work with distinctiveness, excellence, and accountability in their trades and professions. Developing humane yet creative and excellent business environments out of our understanding of the gospel is part of the work of bringing a measure of healing to God’s creation in the power of the Spirit. Bringing Christian joy, hope, and truth to embodiment in the arts is also part of this work. We do all of this because the gospel of God leads us to it, even while we recognize that the ultimate restoration of all things awaits the personal and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ (CS–[13]).
5. The doing of justice and mercy.
   God created both soul and body, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice. The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. Those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. The gospel replaces superiority toward the poor with mercy and compassion. Christian churches must work for justice and peace in their neighborhoods through service even as they call individuals to conversion and the new birth. We must work for the eternal and common good and show our neighbors we love them sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace.

HT: Justin Taylor

Ofer funny

No Complaining Please

The Rescue- Complaining from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

Just audio here.

Pure Awesomeness

Would this advertisement "draw you in"?

I really do try not to make fun of other ministries productions, since, frankly, our technology is pretty silly most of the time. However, when I see a prosperity gospel teacher make a bad commercial, then I figure it's fair game. For example, watch this amazing connection between the movie Top Gun, Van Halen, and Dr. Shine's Preaching:

Approaching God

The Rescue- God Dwells from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

Just audio here.

A Message for Preachers

Worship: A How To...

The Guardian that leads us to Christ

The Rescue- The Ten Commandments from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

Just audio: here

Youth Group Rules

Jon Acuff has written a book called 'Stuff Christians Like.' His website has a different section of the book everyday, and today's on Youth Groups is particularly funny. Here are his rules:

1. The youth group bus or van will not be purchased from a dealership named, “Vans that like to catch on fire & buses that break down in the middle of the night on the side of the road on the way to New Hampshire ski retreats.”

2. Only one “dude with an acoustic guitar” will be allowed per youth group.

3. If you go on a retreat and you’re boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t go, they should expect to get dumpedwhen you return home. Cause that’s happening.

4. All youth group ministers should expect at least one kid to ask for a precise definition of “what it means to be a virgin.”

5. Only tankinis and swim shirts shall be worn on youth group beach trips.

6. All youth group retreats should be held at locations that could double for horror movie backdropsbecause it adds to the intensity of the weekend.

7. Youth group volunteers who are helping out primarily to relive their own high school glory days vicariously through the teens will be removed quickly and quietly.

8. At no point should there be a circle of back massages during a youth group event. (Saw that happen a number of times.)

9. At no point should a youth minister try to keep a bad dating relationship together simply because he knows that as soon as the church girl dumps the non church boyfriend he’ll drop out of youth group.

10. Every month there should be at least one gross food related game played. Preferably involving baby food. Preferably not involving me.

11. The big tub of orange drink should not be stirred with a youth worker’s sweaty arm.

12. You should pull and eventually apologize for epic pranks, claiming that you want to do “all things with excellence” when you are caught.

13. The one parent who complains about something you did will not be empowered to steer the entire course of the youth group. The 50 other parents who didn’t complain will also be considered.

14. If someone hasn’t complained or taken issue with or questioned something your youth group has done in the last six months you will retreat to your youth room and ask yourselves, “What are we doing wrong?”

15. The guy with the jeep will always let the pastor’s kid ride shotgun. In 1993 that would have meant me and the jeep guy were pretty tight.

16. If the youth minister changes his/her tone of voice, vocabulary and outfit, when they get around youth, saying things like, “Yo, my tweets are blowing up, we ballin’ on a budget,” that youth minister will be hit with water balloons filled with honey.

"Can you please help me kill my baby?"

Using tax payer's money to pay for abortions is nothing new. According to their annual report Planned Parenthood received $349,600,000 of their $966,700,000 in revenue from "government grants and contracts."

As always, there is something we can do about this. You can contact your Senators and Representatives and let them know that you do not want to see your tax dollars going to fund abortions. This is not a hard or complicated thing to do. The people over at Americans United for Life (AUL) have set up an easy to use email form you can fill out that will be sent directly to those in the Federal government that represent you. The form can be found here: Email Form

If we do not stand up for these little children who will? Who will be their voice? There are numerous scriptures that talk about the shedding of innocent blood. In Proverbs 6 it says that the shedding of innocent blood is something that God hates and that it is an abomination. We should hate what God hates and love what He loves.

Sola Christus

Malcolm Muggeridge:

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires
rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth
accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written
of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the
moon.

I look back upon my own fellow countrymen (Great Britain),
once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of
them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song,
that ‘the God who made them mighty, shall make them
mightier yet.’

I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian (Hitler) announce to
the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a
thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown (Mussolini) say
he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own
ascension to power. I’ve heard a murderous Georgian
brigand in the Kremlin (Stalin), acclaimed by the intellectual
elite of the world as being wiser than Solomon, more
humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than
Ashoka.

I have seen America wealthier and, in terms of military
weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put
together–so that had the American people so desired, they
could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range
and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the
wind.

England, now part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe,
threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler
and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a
forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate
for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running
out of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways
roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a
disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don
Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of
Watergate.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the
wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled
imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one,
because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom
alone, mankind may still have peace: the person of Jesus
Christ.

I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

HT: The Gospel Coalition

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The Rescue: The Red Sea

The Rescue: The Red Sea from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

For just the audio, click here

The Reason for God

Tim Keller is on the White Horse Inn this week talking about the best modern apologetics book around.