Let’s Not Forsake Meeting Together…

Here’s an ad for “The Church Channel” that was in a magazine that I recently received:

Now, I trust that any number of you knows where this is going and could write this blog yourself, so I’ll keep this brief (relatively – I just got through writing and needed to modify this statement).

“Our viewers attend church from the comfort of their own homes.”  First of all, let’s agree that those pictured are NOT homebound church members who would attend if not physically unable to do so.  This phrase being a primary tag line is obviously what caught my attention and whatever else the ad says is subservient to the primary statements.  

Isn’t this the emphasis of these networks?  They certainly speak to you as if you’re right there and they certainly ask you for your “offering” (or “seed” or whatever language is most current) as if you’re among the congregation.  Is this even close to what the church had in mind? Perhaps I would not be so upset if the content in the vast majority of these programs weren’t so bad, but I think it would be close.  There is a presence and proximity that is essential for a biblical church experience.  No matter the content, it is a travesty to endorse our natural sinful inclination to remain independent, disconnected from biblical authority within biblical community.

Of course, they say that the programming is for those who have not yet found a church or are unable to attend one.  Again, I am not speaking of the homebound, although I fear they watch the programming like those pictured.  I am talking more about people like those pictured in the ad.  Given that they do not appear homebound, do they really look like they want to go looking for a church?  Is this really promoting the joy of finding a place of worship filled with messy, redeemed sinners who subject themselves to the regular exposition of God’s Word, having their worlds rocked by the conviction of the Holy Spirit through that Word preached?  No.  If you can have that much “fun” just sitting on your own couch and not engaged physically with the body of Christ local, then why even make the effort.

“24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” – Hebrews 10:24-25

How can love and good works be stirred up in the “one another” that you’re never around?  Isn’t that is what’s implied in the next verse?  It is a command not to forsake the meeting together.  There is an accountability that comes from attending and worshiping alongside another.  Even in the classic “hypocrite” argument about those who go to church, there is something of a goodness (at the core, people act hypocritically because they feel that they should be different as the body of Christ – how you respond to that conviction is what makes you either an authentic believer or hypocrite).

Often the first thing a person will do when they start to neglect their walk with Christ is to forsake regularly attending church.  That is why we should pay attention to those who are regularly absent.  No, not to hunt them down; rather to care for them enough to inquire, pray and help them.  We must love one another enough to say and do the hard thing (always in love).  

One side note to this must be for college students.  Too often college students find their church “satisfaction” in either floating around to individual events (picking and choosing among churches) or in the worship events of para-church ministries.  Para-church ministries have their place, but that is NOT in the category of the church.  Any good para-church ministry leader will promote this joyfully as well, because they also enjoy their church community.

The point is, the local church is messy and should be increasing in purity through time, though never perfect at all.  One should find a church that faithful preaches the Word of God (not men’s ideas), rightly administers the ordinances and seeks to be healthy in leadership, prayer, evangelism, etc…  Basically, a church that is seeking to be as biblical as possible.  

So, find a group of people that you can really get involved with and humbly worship alongside them on a regular basis, even joining their ranks.  I don’t have time to really address the biblical validity of local church membership, but suffice it to say that from Acts on through Revelation, you’d be hard pressed not to see the centrality of the local church in putting the glory of God in the gospel of Christ on display.

I love you, Jan…

Quarterly Church Conference – This Wednesday, July 23rd @ 6:00 PM

This will be a regular meeting with an exciting twist.  This will be the first official church conference where we will approve the membership of those who have joined since we unanimously approved the new procedures for membership.  Bottom line… you have a great responsibility to take part (joyfully) in this process and celebrate how God continues to shape our body through people who will contribute to our better putting God’s glory on display!

Phil Keaggy and Stuttgart, Germany

Quick post tonight…

I enjoy listening to instrumental music during a portion of my studies on Saturday evening.  Tonight I was listening to an older recording by Phil Keaggy called “Beyond Nature.”  The clip below is the second song on the CD.  I bought this CD while living in Stuttgart, Germany right after college as a short-term missionary.  It’s incredible to me how sounds shape our memories.  I can still remember (although 17 years ago now) looking out of my office window at rain and snow while studying to teach our singles (a mix of 20 some-odd nationalities).  What listening to this evokes in me is a memory of a stripped down life for the purpose of the Word among an international community.  

Next time you have an extra 5-10 minutes during the week, drive by the church, go a few more blocks and see the international community known as the University of Arkansas.  What sounds will those students hear out of us that will cause them to look back in 17 years and remember with profound fondness.  May it be the simple Word of God proclaimed, sung and lived!

Too Fast…Slow Down / Too Slow…Fasten Down

A couple of thoughts tonight as I have been listening to a great message from a pastor’s conference I recently attended recently (missed this talk due to schedule).

I often fret over the speed of change in our church, some things fast and some slow.  Have I managed it well?  Have I pressed too much?  Have I presumed the body knows me better than they do and demanded their trust too early?  Why would this particular change be a big deal?  Why does it feel like I’m dragging my feet?  Fear of man?  Lack of prayer?  These are just a handful of the questions that fly through my mind on a fairly regular basis; often while I’m very busy managing ministry while hoping to see a reformation / revival in our midst.

Here’s what I know:

1. The Word of God alone is sufficient for the changes that must occur in UBC (both known and unknown).
2. God is a God of long-suffering and patience and I need Him to be that way toward me and I need that toward myself and the body of Christ @ UBC.
3. God has knit our hearts together unusually early, yet there is a majority of our numbers who do not have that connection with me and, therefore, my love for ALL in our fellowship must influence the timing of decisions (including the length and intensity of sermons…no, not content or depth, mainly length).
4. God, in Christ revealed in the Word of God, is alone the change agent for UBC.  I am not the answer, only God’s Word.
5. Jesus Christ is pre-eminent and died to possess His people.  UBC is Christ’s church, so any attachment to any man as “their” church is misled and needs to be corrected.  At the end of the day (and the “aisle”) there is one Groom, and He is Christ!
6. I love UBC (the people) and being here.  I often have feelings / thoughts that the greatest danger to UBC rightly glorifying God and God entrusting disciples to us would be my personal failures (not depending on my giftedness, just a hopefully healthy fear of the enemy and my own pride and lust).  So, I desperately depend on the inner working of the Holy Spirit, which is often wrought when you pray the hardest.

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

Philippians 1:18c-21

A Primer on Islam

 

Response to an Evolutionist

This weekend Art Hobson, retired Physics prof at the University of Arkansas, wrote an article against creationists you can read HERE.  The following is what I wrote in a public response to Dr. Hobson:

Wikipedia does not define “truth,” rather stating that it is relative to the perspective of those making such judgment. Oxford dictionaries say “truth”is what is “accepted as being fact or true. “Art Hobson [Times, July 5 ] certainly has the right and freedom to state what he believes to be true about creation. I am surprised (not really ) that a person so given to scientific fact uses such thin arguments. For instance, what is the basis for his determination that the fossils are indeed millions of years old ? What data is so irrefutable that can make (for him ) such a truth-filled statement ?

The chances of 200 strands of DNA being perfectly formed (and in order ), even if it took 8 billion years, is so astronomically improbable it is difficult to call it science. In addition to that formation, there is membrane, cell nucleus and an environment for all of this to happen. The only thing a person is left with, if denying God as Creator (not even speaking of Christianity at this point ), is that mankind is so amazing that even just the idea of us that was floating around out there for billions of years just compelled thousands of nonelements and chance activities to occur together and form us because we are just that amazing ! Ridiculous. The essential argument here really isn’t about science as much as it is philosophy. The truth is (I know, according to my truth ) that people like Art Hobson just cannot imagine a being anywhere more amazing than mankind, therefore himself. Evolutionists do this by putting man at the top of the evolutionary chain (at least so far ), denying that there is a Creator God. The level of arrogance in Hobson’s article makes the title and the opening almost a farce. Those of us who hold to such “malarkey”are in good company with the framers of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant minds like C. S. Lewis and William F. Buckley, not to mention the revelation of the Bible. Hobson seems to me to be one of the few that could actually stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and think much of himself. (See Romans 1:18-23) 

Mike Lumpkin / Fayetteville

———————–

Now the paper did not want to print the full text of Romans 1:18-23, but I appreciate the fact they at least included the reference itself.  I struggle with when and how to respond to public editorials like Dr. Hobson’s, but I am driven to do so, not because I think that the Bible or truth need defending in that sense, but simply wanting to state what I believe many in the Christian community would want to state themselves.  I do not believe I am the voice of Christians in NW Arkansas, but I’m grateful for the freedom to make statements regarding biblical truth in a public forum.  That has not been taken from us yet!

With that, let me commend to you what I told our interns in a recent lecture.  1 Peter 3:15-16 states, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”  Apologetics is not evangelism, but it can (and should) lead to true evangelism.  This begins with personal holiness, which I feel a lacking of many times, and preparation.  Part of preparation is being resolved in your doctrine so that much effort is given to gentleness and respect.

Our flesh loves to be right at whatever cost.  To be gentle and respectful does not mean passive, wimpy, or necessarily soft spoken.  It simply means you are not argumentative and if there is a sharpness, you mean no guile.  I exhort you all to know God and His Word above all else and you will know any dissenting voices (whether an atheist / evolutionist or a secular pluralist – like Oprah).  No matter how blatant or subtle, the enemies of the Christian faith are best battled by believers who resolutely love their Christ enough to know all that they can about Him.  Remember, He is your HOPE and hope is something the world does not have…and it makes them ask questions!

The Gospel in 6 Minutes…

With a Professor like this, is it any wonder my doctorate is going so slowly?

Exclusivity and Absolute Truth are hated by the world…go figure, the church itself is confused!

I have been called prideful, arrogant, an exclusivist along the way.  While I do not embrace them, they have all been true at times, but oddly enough usually NOT when I’m accused of them.  Usually (and it’s really not often, so I’m no martyr here) the claims / accusations come from either a pluralist who is simply a secular humanist or a pluralist who claims to be clergy.  I readily admit all of them, hating the first two, but not shying away from the “exclusivist” claim.

Recently, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a study that concludes 57% of Evangelicals and 70% of all religions claim it is either possible or likely that there is more than one way to heaven (other than Christ).  You can read the articles in TIME or at FoxNews.com.   

The more staggering percentage is the Evangelical number of 57%.  Over the years, the term “evangelical” has been under scrutiny and difficult to define.  Wikipedia.com (perhaps the largest online encyclopedia) defines Evangelicalism as “a theological perspective, most closely associated with Protestant Christianity, which identifies with the gospel. Although evangelicalism has been defined in a number of ways,^[1] most adherents consider belief in the need for personal conversion (or being “born again“), some expression of the gospel through evangelism, a high regard for Biblical authority, and an emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus to be key characteristics.^[2].”

Others have made the definition even more broad by simply saying it is a theological perspective that holds to any claims of Christ, which makes it even more of a smorgasbord of beliefs, mainly because people have a tendency to say what they believe Jesus must have meant, rather than what He actually said or claimed.

This is why we must hold fast to the authority of Scripture.  It is scripture that holds the gospel and only scripture.  While you might see a general revelation of the Creator God while looking at a tree (Romans 1:20), NO ONE (Rom.3) will, without the revelation of the gospel in the scriptures, naturally look at a tree, envision a cross, be convicted of sin, assured of Christ’s atoning work and repent and be saved.  It is the propositional truth of scripture that will boldly move and resurrect the spiritually dead (Rom.1:16).

Now, we cannot really change other churches, but we can continue to boldly hold to absolute truth and the exclusive claims of Christ (John 14:6).  We must do so with gentleness and respect, but that does not mean a tolerance that leads to adherence to the “path” that others have chosen for salvation.  Remember, it is by grace you yourself have been saved (Eph.2:8,9).  There is no room for boasting, so our presentation of the gospel must be gentle and bold, aggressive and respectful.  Look, in our teaching we make it plain that God alone saves in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit.  We are just agents.  However, if we love the gospel, we will joyfully participate in that glorious proclamation, because when one comes to Christ, God is glorified.  But we will also know that even if we do NOT see one come to Christ, there is glory in the proclamation itself.