Thom Rainer Answers My Question (Part Two)

In so many words my question was: "Dr. Rainer would you not say that the main reason why these students are dropping out is because the church is not lovingly holding parents accountable to disciple their children and then equipping them to do so?" Dr. Rainer's answer was astute and timely...

He quickly responded with (and I am paraphrasing), "You have hit the nail on the head." He also stated, "Our research shows that the students who do remain in church are the ones whose parents have played a significant role in their discipleship."

This obviously came as no shock to me. This is the message that I have had the privilege of proclaiming along with others like Steve Wright, Blake Hickman, Chris Swann, Dr. Wes Black, Dr. Richard Ross, Dr. Randy Stinson, etc. There was a real reason, however, that I wanted Dr. Rainer to share that answer from the floor of the conference in front of many pastors and student pastors. That reason is that this message for the most part, is not being taught in our seminaries. It is not being taught by our state denominational leaders. It has not been placed before the majority of our pastors and student pastors as a clarion call to reform the current ailing culture of family and church.

Being at this conference helped me to realize more than ever that, in the trenches, we are shooting at the enemy with cap guns. And the sad thing about it is that the experts who should be equipping our front line soldiers are the ones handing out the cap guns. The only weapon that can sufficiently address this crisis is the truth that is stated as principle in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and is reinforced as doctrine in Ephesians 6:4

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Deuteronomy 6:4-7


Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
- Ephesians 6:4

Thom Rainer Answers My Question (Part One)

I had the privilege of attending the 2008 Evangelism Conference of Southern Baptists in North Carolina this week. It was a singular experience in many ways. I hope that in the coming days that I can unpack my experiences for you here. For right now, however, let me give you a little teaser for what I want to talk about at length in tomorrows post.

One of the main plenary sessions of this conference was a presentation by Dr. Thom Rainer. Dr. Rainer is the president of Lifeway Christian Resources. He is a gifted speaker and teacher and we are blessed to have a man of his insight and wisdom at the helm of such an influential organization like Lifeway. In his session, Dr. Rainer presented 12 trends of modern churches and those who attend them. One of the trends that he presented was:

70% of young people between the ages of 18-22 drop out of church and many never return.

At the end of his presentation, Dr. Rainer took questions from the floor. As I sat there listening. I knew that this opportunity was too great to pass up, so I motioned to the man with the mic and asked Dr. Rainer my question.

In so many words my questions was: "Dr. Rainer would you not say that the main reason why these students are dropping out is because the church is not lovingly holding parents accountable to disciple their children and then equipping them to do so?" Dr. Rainer's answer was astute and timely...

I will share his answer to my question and some other observations about the conference in tomorrow's post.

Crazy Thoughts

Something that Mike posted last week got me thinking. Mike commented on a conversation that he was made aware of between a student and a former professor that had left him alarmed. It got me to thinking, "What would my college and seminary professors think of me if they knew where I stood theologically and philosophically in regards to the church and to student ministry?" I dare say they would be shocked.

Honestly, some would be shocked that I was thinking at all. That statement is as genuine as I can say it. I was not known in my academic pursuits for being one to take academic pursuits seriously. I was the guy who never participated in theological or philosophical "discussions" because I thought they were just stupid. If things starting getting tense in a class, I was likely to begin climbing under my desk to curl up in the fetal position. It wasn't that I thought these issues weren't worth dialoguing about, it was more that I knew that each time these issues came up, no real dialogue was going to take place.

I wrote a post last year talking about how I was glad that in both my undergrad at LU and in my seminary at SEBTS, I was blessed to have professors, for the most part, who never tried to force their theological views down my throat. I praise God for that. It has helped me to become what I am today in that realm. In that area, I was encouraged to search the scriptures and to yield to the Spirit for guidance. However, one bone I would have to pick with them would be in regards to ministry philosophy and methodology. In that area, there was not a lot of room for debate.

I was a student in the bigger is better, more the merrier, era of student ministry training. I don't really remember being taught what real ministry looked like. I don't remember discussing James 1 in any youth class. I don't remember a whole lot of discussion about equipping families to assume their God given authority in the life of their teenager. As a matter of fact, most all that I heard was the exact opposite.

And so I am left to wonder. If I had to have a conversation about theology and philosophy in regards to the church and to student ministry, how would that conversation end? I would pray there would be some good dialogue, but honestly, I don't know how hopeful I would be.

Redrawing The Lines

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am an idealist. I believe that culture of family and church in most evangelical circles is not what it should be. I believe that we have allowed satan to erase the lines that help direct us to what God desires for our churches and families. What is very humbling is that in times past, I have been used by satan to do this work of erasing. I suppose that is why I am so passionate about making sure that the lines get redrawn. The days ahead are way too precious to waste wondering where to go for lack of direction.

So what are these lines? Well, Let me suggest 4 that we would do well to redraw in our churches and families:

1. Line One: Daily Spiritual Warfare - Ask any of my brothers in ministry and they will tell you that I am a broken record when it comes to this one. It's hard to re-draw a line that you don't realize has been erased. Doing spiritual warfare daily helps you to see what the enemy is doing and to find the help that the Lord is so ready to offer. As a resource to help you this area, download this very simple daily reminder: Daily Preparation For Spiritual Warfare

2. Line Two: Family Worship - This line is sorely lacking and any improvement in this area would help tremendously. It's not rocket science, its just families at least once a week turning off the TV and opening God's Word together. If you don't know where to start Providence Baptist Church has a 7 year Bible Reading Plan that you can easily download and follow.

3. Line Three: Churches That Equip Families - Churches have to re-focus their mission on equipping families instead of replacing them. We need churches and families that cooperate and help one another. This is the dynamic coming together of Deuteronomy 32:46-47 and Acts 2:42. This may sound simple, but its not. It's radical and its going to take some radical pastors to redraw this line. A good reference for this line is a book entitled reThink by: Steve Wright.

4. Line Four: The Preaching and Teaching of the Gospel - This line above all others is the one that satan fears the most. It is the only means of changing the hearts and minds of people. No lasting change can occur except through the teaching of the simple gospel. In fact the gospel is so simple, that until we are willing to simplify our lives to get down to its level we will continue to pass it by on the way to our next Bible study. If you need some encouragement in this area, let me recommend a book entitled The Bruised Reed by: Richard Sibbes.

Okay, so I am an idealist. I believe that someone is going to read this and take up their chalk to start redrawing with me. If you do, leave a comment and let me know. It's always easier when you have a helping hand.

The Greatest Barrier To Church Reform

As our families go, so go our churches. I am convinced of this more than ever. To deny this fact is not only silly, it's irresponsible. Yet, even this week, I was confronted by the thoughts of a youth ministry educator who patently denied that equipping parents is the corrective for students dropping out of churches. When I hear such sentiments it really clarifies why so many of our young student ministry leaders are poorly informed. I, however, will save that discussion for a later time.

I think I have come up with a theory why its is so difficult for churches to change the way they approach student ministry, and ministry in general for that matter. The reason is not Biblical per se, it is cultural. We have allowed the culture to shape how we do family and church so much that things that were expected in previous generations are foreign and novel to us today. For instance, consider the practice of family worship.

There was a time when it would have been an embarrassment for a father to forsake the regular reading of God's word, praying, and worshipping in his home with his family. Somewhere along the line a lie crept into the minds of our parents (dad's in particular) that they didn't need to do that because, after all, that was what they paid the youth pastor to do. This led to youth pastors having to take on responsibilities that were never meant to be theirs and has landed us right in the middle of the youth drop-out crisis we are in today. The hard part of fixing this problem is that for reform to occur, it is going to require changing the cultural mindset of both families and pastors and its going to have to start with pastors. This is where it gets tricky.

I admire the honesty and integrity of men who follow God's call to be pastors. It's not a job for the faint of heart. Yet, if they are not willing to change the culture of their own homes, then there is no point expecting the youth pastors and much less the parents in their churches to do the same. At some point, some radical is going to have to stand in his pulpit and say, "I don't care if it costs me my ministry and my livelihood, I am going to put my family first and take the leadership for seeing my children are discipled." This is not easy.

Please keep in mind, I am not saying that churches should do away with student ministry. Far from it. I think the need for student ministry is greater than ever. The focus of student ministry, however, has to be equipping parents to do what God has called them to do and then coming alongside them to hold them accountable and to help them. This is also not easy.

Yes, I believe the greatest barrier to real church reform is a wrong cultural idea of what families and churches are supposed to be like. If somehow this stony ground can be plowed, then maybe we can begin to see God sow some seeds that will result in a great spiritual harvest. What is at stake is not trivial it is a matter of life and death at least that was Moses opinion...

[Moses] said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life."
- Deuteronomy 32:46-47a

Simplicity Addendum

I was reading in The Bruised Reed this morning, and this quote from Sibbes summarizes perfectly what I was trying to say yesterday:

"Preachers should take heed likewise that they hide not their meaning in dark speeches, speaking in the clouds. Truth fears nothing so much as concealment, and desires nothing so much as to be laid open to the view of all. When it is most unadorned, it is most lovely and powerful."- p. 25

The Simplicity of the Gospel

One of the worst moments of my life came the day of my ordination council. That sentence is one of those insert joke here lines, but seriously, the moment that I am about to share with you is both funny and serious at the same time.

My ordination council was incredibly uplifting and awesome until my final question. The one man in the room whose question I was afraid of, was about to ask his question. After a brief pause he sighed and looking almost defeated asked me a question far too easy for a man of his intellect. He asked me to tell what the atonement meant.

Now some reading here will gasp and say that is no easy question. However as a believer there is no question that should be answered as easily as that one. Basically I was asked to define the Gospel, and I froze. After what seemed like an hour, but really was only about 30 seconds, the questioner told me that he would give me the answer if I needed help. He did this in a very sincere, genuine and loving way I might add. I said I didn't need help and then proceeded to answer the question.

You might be thinking why did I freeze? In that moment of time every thing I had ever read, written or been told to read on the atonement flooded my mind. Every theory, every opinion overwhelmed my grey matter. I was overcome with way too much information and therefore became afraid. I had allowed my mind to overcomplicate the one basic and most simple truth that defined me as an individual.

For the last three-plus years since that day, that memory has haunted me. I vowed that day that I would never allow myself to freeze up again when I was asked to define the Gospel. The problem today is that we take such a simple and beautiful truth and complicate it so much that it can almost make no sense to understand it. Yet we expect those who have never heard to know what we are talking about when we use such words and then are quick to condemn them when they don't understand. The Gospel is simple, but it isn't shallow. It is rich and deep. It is filling and quenching. It is life, but it is simple. It is so simple that you have to approach with childlike abandonment to receive it, yet so profound that some of the greatest minds in all history have been stumped by it. To those who have been awakened by the Gospel, let us never lose sight of its simplicity and its beauty and let us be transformed by it every moment that we live.

The Legacy Of Modern Christian Fundamentalism

The word fundamentalism conjures up all kinds of images in the 21st century mind. Many equate fundamentalism with religious extremists who use violence to suppress or eradicate dissenting views. There was a day, however, when fundamentalism, in the Christian sense, simply meant to believe in the basics of the faith.

In an effort to stem the growing liberal theological tolerance of some of its leaders, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1910 adopted a list of 5 core beliefs that were "necessary and essential" to the Christian faith:

The inerrancy of Scripture.
The virgin birth of Christ.
The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin.
The bodily resurrection of Christ.
The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

If the fundamentalist movement had remained bound to these ideals and had not gotten swept away by other issues, there is no doubt that most if not all orthodox Christians would proudly wear the label fundamentalist today. Fundamentalism, like any movement that loses its focus, eventually became a caricature of itself that drowned out the values on which it was founded. One of the greatest conservative intellectuals who lamented this "drowning out" of pure fundamentalism was Dr. Carl F. H. Henry (pictured top left).

Dr. Henry wrote a short treatise on the subject published in 1947 entitled,"The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism"In this seminal critique of a movement gone astray, Dr. Henry wrote,

What concerns me more is that we have needlessly invited criticism and even ridicule, by a tendency in some quarters to parade secondary and sometimes even obscure aspects of our position as necessary frontal phases of our view. To this extent we have failed to oppose the full genius of the Hebrew-Christian outlook to its modern competitors.

It is indeed unfortunate for us that some brothers in Christ continue to follow that sad legacy of being distracted by incidentals. Even today as the majority of students in our churches "graduate from God" there are those who are drowning out the call for student ministry reformation with cries for emancipation and eradication. It is the hope of this student ministry leader and blogger that when the dust settles from this current crisis, we would see families equipped instead of churches stripped.

I'm a hypocrite...

And I'm judgmental too. Last Monday and Tuesday I was away in Asheville, NC for a pre-site visit for a conference this fall. I was there with 3 fellow student pastor's and we got to talking politics. In very short time our talk to turned to our mutual dislike of Mitt Romney. One of the guys asked if it was okay that the only reason he didn't like Romney was because he was mormon. I said of course, because that was one of the myriad reasons I didn't like the guy, along with the fact that he smiles too much and he has a scary laugh. But if I'm honest one of the real reason I didn't and don't like Mitt Romney is because he is mormon. That covers judgmentalism. Now onto hypocrisy.

Friday morning I woke up and watched The Today Show for a little bit, as is my custom in the morning. Matt Lauer was doing an interview with Anne Coulter. Ms. Coulter was whining about how she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than for John McCain because Sen. McCain isn't conservative enough for her. I immediately began to argue in my head with Ms. Coulter because I thought her logic was stupid. As I explained this to Amber she reminded me that, although she agreed with my position, I was using as little logic in regards to Gov. Romney as Ms. Coulter was using in regards to Sen. McCain. So now not only was I judgmental, but I was a judgmental hypocrite.

Now, what does this have to do with anything? Good question. As I thought this through I realized that the church is guilty of this same syndrome, but with far greater consequences. The church today is full of judgmental hypocrites who choose only to see things through their eyes and then pronounce everyone else stupid for not agreeing with their position. How is that winsome? How is that attractive to a world that is desperate to be changed by the power of the Gospel? Much like the political arena today, the church is being torn apart from within instead of uniting itself around what we should all agree on. Our world is lost and dying and needs the Gospel. As I was reminded this weekend, politics pale in comparison to the Gospel.

In an unrelated matter, I was a little late in starting the Puritan Challenge this year and am just now reading The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. In closing, here is a quote that I found quite humbling:

"Ungodly spirits, ignorant of God's ways in bringing His children to heaven, censure broken-hearted Christians as miserable persons, whereas God is doing a gracious good work with them. It is no easy matter to bring a man from nature to grace, and from grace to glory, so unyielding and intractable are our hearts."

Weekend Update: Cool Huckabee Videos

I know that we here at Two Institutions have posted much about politics of late. Now while this blog is in no way intended to be political in nature, we do feel an obligation to inform and at times entertain. And so I put the question, what could be more entertaining than politics? Its the season; so indulge me and yourself by enjoying these videos about Governor Mike Huckabee.

This first one, is just plain cute and witty!




This second one makes a great parallel between Gov. Huckabee and the NY Giants!




And finally, this video well, its just plain inspiring!




Have a great weekend and a blessed Lord's Day!

Humble Orthodoxy Hitting The Mark

"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
- Matthew 10:16

If there were ever a time when this admonition needed heeding, that time is now. In way too many cases prideful posturing and bickering has distracted from the reasoned dialogue that is desperately needed among the growing number of younger, Reformed, evangelicals. At the center of this move toward reasoned dialogue is a group that call themselves New Attitude. Their motto is the phrase, "Humble Orthodoxy", and they are hitting right on the mark.

I grew up as a Bible-believing, king-james only, dispensational, premillenial, fundamentalist, seperated, baptist. I was a pharisee in training. I had a chip on my shoulder as big as Gibraltar and it has taken many years for me to see at an older age what the Lord has shown these young men who are several years my junior. I support what they are doing and it is my hope that young seminarians and college aged in the Reformed, evangelical fold will take a page from New Attitude and practice some Humble Orthodoxy. If they do, only the other side of eternity will tell the story of what the Lord will do in our midst.

The Pundits Go Nuts: Romney Is Actually The Has Been

Once again, hats off to Joe Carter over at The Evangelical Outpost. He has rightfully demonstrated that despite the fact that Romney is the "conservative" pundits media darling, his candidacy is a miserable failure. Is it remotely possible that this could be due to the fact that the only thing that Romney is genuinely conservative about is the economy? Can't these so-called "conservative" pundits get it through their country club republican skulls that maybe some people vote with their consciences and not just their wallets? Oh, and while you "conservative" pundits are stewing on that one, think about endorsing a candidate who can connect with real people.

As you can tell, I am thoroughly disgusted with the elitist "conservative" media who have been bashing Huckabee and worshiping Romney. I feel I am justified in my frustration. And after last night, I feel justified in my belief that between Romney and Huckabee, Huckabee is the better man in principle and in practice. So let the "conservative" pundits go nuts while the underfunded, but well-spoken former Baptist preacher shows them who is presidential. Go Huck, all the way to the Vice-Presidents mansion. Oh, and by the way, thanks for giving me the opportunity to get this off my chest. The readers of this blog are a most kind and agreeable lot!

Acts Forum: The Sanctity of Life

As a follow-up to the post from January 31st on Cultivating A Culture of Life, we would like to make available a message delivered by Dr. Mark Liederbach. This message was delivered as a part of the Acts Forum teaching ministry at Providence Baptist Church. Dr. Liederbach is an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

The message can be listened to or downloaded at the
Providence Baptist Church Acts Forum audio download site.

A Must Read For Men In Ministry

Coming soon to a bookstore near you is a must read for all men in ministry. The book is entitled, A Practical Guide For Life And Ministry. The author, David Horner, brings to this work 30 years of ministry experience. The things that he shares in this book reflect the character and integrity of a man who has overcome the pitfalls of vocational ministry by resting completely in God's sovereign grace. I say this without hesitation because this author is also my pastor.

I have sat under David's teaching for over 10 years. His clarity of focus, his passion for the Gospel and for the sufficiency of Scripture, and his love for his family has been a model that has inspired me greatly. God has his hand on David's ministry and you only stand to benefit from reading and applying the wisdom that you will find in this book.

A Practical Guide For Life And Ministry will be available in early March. A brief synopsis of the book can be found at the Baker Books website. It is also available for pre-order from Amazon. More information can be found about David and his teaching ministry at the Providence Baptist Church website.

Mitt Romney's Pro-Life Expediency

As the campaign begins to heat-up, I think it timely to consider where the candidates stand. I ran across and interesting article by Joe Carter entitled The Case Against Mitt Romney this morning that confirmed some troubling things that I had heard about Mitt Romney. The man has invented, re-invented, and re-re-invented himself to get into elected office. I know that all candidates do this to a certain extent but on the issue of life Romney has really done some back-flips. What is really troubling is the following video of Romney in his bid to become governor of Massachusetts. When you watch it, be sure to listen for what he says about his mom and how she raised him. This is not the kind of man who can foster a culture of life in this country.





Thanks to Tim Challies for spreading the word on his blog.