On Rock shows, Ruth, Round Tables, and Relaxin'

This here poster is the official show poster for a band I am playing in now called Matt Haeck and the Quiet Light. I am wearing the hat of drummer as part of the Quiet Light and am honored and humbled to be a part of the outfit. We are playing March 6th @ this new San Diego venue called the Marquee. It is an old church building re-fashioned into a music hall. I am really excited about the band. It is comprised of seminarians and/or ex-seminarians. Great friends, brothers, and musicians. We have had a great time practicing and working up what I think will be a good set of Matt's original music. Matt has started out with a solo career and is now moving to have a band approach to his music. You can find his stuff here: www.myspace.com/matthaeck, but he would want you to know that it sounds better live.

In other matters, I have been blessed to continue exhorting through the book of Ruth on Sunday evenings at our church, Harvest OPC. Wow, what a story, lots of great gospel that just saturates throughout the narrative. Praise God for the gospel, found in every passage of Scripture.

I am also well into my last semester at Seminary. I just love my classes. I have a senior seminar class that has a great batch of readings on a number of interesting topics. Right now we are doing readings on what it means to be Reformed. And how one might answer that question if asked. Very stimulating discussion. It is a true seminar format, no lectures, just discussion with my dear classmates with whom I have done seminary with now for three long, enjoyable, and richly rewarding years (more on this later, I love my graduating class). I am also in two great preaching courses, one taught by Dr. Derke Bergsma. A man who has a whole life of experience in ministry and is willing to share it with students, he is a dear elder brother. I am also enjoying another class just on preaching the Psalms with Dr. Godfrey. This is definitive: I have never laughed so hard in any class ever. Whew, it is so insightful and so enjoyable. I am teary eyed at points from laughing, and struck by his insight into the nature of preaching. To top it off I am taking a class on the prophetical books, and then one on the doctrine of the church. Dr. Horton has lined up a great cast of ministers from different theological traditions in order to host a round table discussion on different ecclesiastical models in our doctrine of the church class. All ministers will have read his great new book People and Place which we are required to read, and which I recommend. Can't wait for that. Learning is fun.

Finally, us Brittons have begun our birthing class. Boy, it was neat. Its a small class full of first-timers like us. We like our teacher and our class. We eat fruit, look at anatomy posters, do stretches, and then learn how to relax. How great. We also learned that pregnant women have a new harmone when they are pregnant called relaxin' which is supposed to help them do just that. We love our baby boy. A reminder that God's promises are for every generation. He is a great God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love for us, our children, and our children's children (i.e. every generation!).

Whale watching excursion

I thought I would put up a post about our special Valentine's day whale watching excursion and other such matters. Unfortunately I have no idea how to nicely format these posts with pictures, so until I learn, it will be messy, I plead ignorance.

The pictures you see are a progression. We left the San Diego Harbor and saw some amazing sites. And then we just kept getting further and further away, it was a great experience. We did see some whales but they were very difficult to catch on camera and film. We also saw a large school of dolphins. They liked to come swim right by the boat. Unfortunately, we did not get pictures of those either. The whole San Diego harbor area is amazing. We like to go and do things in that district. We are usually drop-jawed at the sites.

Thoughts on Church

I recently have been picking my way through Mark Driscoll's & Gerry Breshears new book titled Vintage Church. It seems to be geared for guys interested in church planting specifically with a view towards the city. This post does not attempt at reviewing the book at this point. However, the book has caused me to reflect again about the emerging church, the missional church movement, and the issue and application of contextualization when it comes to gospel and the church. So below represents some questions and concerns about all things missional, emerging, and city redeeming:

1) In my estimate it seems that the term 'missional' being espoused in our current North American church milieu is largely a reactionary term. Many in the movement are coming out of evangelical, Roman catholic, or other so-called traditional churches, and they seem to have observed that these churches are designed to get people to come to the church. Missional theologians advocate taking the church to go to the people, and thus to be missional it is a reversal of the traditional 'ya'll come to church' approach. Without having a mature oppinion on the matter, I do wonder if this is simply another 'wave' that evangelicalism is riding in attempts to be relevant. Mega-church, seeker-sensitive, and now missional is the latest fad. It my estimate the church is inherently a missional enterprise, and to say the phrase 'missional church' seems to be a redundency of terms. There is no such thing as a non-missional church. The church is embarking on its mission when it heralds the good news and administers the sacraments, the kingdom of God being present on earth through the church. The people of God are then equipped by the means of grace to live their week in response to the goodness of God's grace in Christ, and thus all the individual members of the church are liberated to honor God in their professions. It seems that when evangelicalism got away from being confessional, they are doomed to ride the waves of relevancy, seeking identity in how they are viewed by the culture instead of what they confess the Scriptures to teach. Anytime principles are lost, preferences rule the day.

2) Another point I have trouble with in this whole movement is the talk I hear about 'redeeming the city' or 'redeeming culture.' My problem is that I do not believe it to be helpful nor more importantly biblical, to apply soteriological categories to things other than human beings. Christ died to save a people, not music, sports, cities, government, etc. So whether they mean to or not, applying soteriological categories to things other than humans is confusing the gospel. It is a misnomer and contradiction of terms to believe that one can redeem art, brick laying, zoo-keeping, or the like.

3) All this brings up a third point which may help with the other two. That is, I have become more persuaded that the church (generally speaking) tends to confuse the role of the church as the church, i.e. the institution of the church, with the role of the members of the church, or the church as organism. The church is both institution and organism and these two things are to be held in balanced tension. In my earlier days I used to believe church was solely an organism, but by the grace of God I have been corrected by the light of Scripture to see that it is an institution as well. Thus, it seems that many in the missional movement tend to blur this distinction and over-emphasize the organism aspect of church. They end up having the church as institution (instead of organism) carrying out such tasks that only the church as individuals should carry out. For example, mercy ministries. Is the church as an institution (i.e. deacons, elders, minister) called to help with the material needs of those people who do not profess Jesus Christ as their savior? Are church resources such as money, facilities, time, etc. to be given over to this task? Or is the church as an institution to be about preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, in order to empower the church as organism to love their neighbor as they love themselves? It seems to me that it is latter that seems to accord with Scripture. Now, I know this sounds cruel, and maybe even hateful. But consider this, the gospel is far greater and far more important to give to those who are outside the church than any other thing, even material resource. What I mean is that if someone comes to the church and needs help paying rent and asks the church to foot the bill (i.e. they ask the deacons of the church who act in the name of the church) and the church agrees to foot the bill if that person comes to some church services, what exactly does this say about the gospel? It begins to look and sound like a product. The old bait and switch. Here's gas money now let me tell you about Jesus. The mercy shown here has a price, the person must do something to receive goods. Yet the gospel is free. How does this carry out the kingdom ethic of turning the other cheek? It doesn't. The church then begins to operate like all the other business institutions out there. Product (mercy) for payment (church attendence).

And people know how to jump through the hoops. But the church is called to be counter-cultural. Thus, what if the church tells the person that they will not foot the bill, and that the church is not a social welfare organization, but that the church offers something far greater, namely, the good news, and then proceeds to share that with the person and then points them to a social welfare organization to help with the rent situation. I believe this action would let the light of the gospel shine all the brighter. Meanwhile, as church members encounter strangers who need rides or need their car jumped, they (the church members) in godly wisdom should seek to help their neighbor the best they can, and turn the other cheek without expecting any payment in return. But material, social needs are not the essence of the gospel. The gospel is the news of what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means for you and me. This gospel then frees us to love and serve our neighbor as Christians. Yet, I don't think the church as institution needs to be endorsing social justice organizations, parterning with para-church organizations, starting hospitals, etc. Rather, the church must feed the sheep in order to free them to live lives of gratitude so the flock can start up soup kitchens, help at senior centers, etc. But without understanding the church as institution and organism, and distinguishing between the roles of each, things get blurry. Things such as the gospel, Christ coming to the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost. Now, there are circumstances that arise which are not immediately black-and-white and that have to be considered on a case by case basis with wisdom, but if our principles are not in place, the way forward will be that much more foggier.

In closing, I am grateful that a lot of evangelical folks are now young, restless, and reformed, yet as one of my professors has said these folks that love Calvin's doctrine of salvation so passionately, now need to reckon with Calvin's doctrine of the church. I would add that there is an intimate connection with what one believes about salvation and then what they believe about the church. The one goes with the other. But more on that some other time.

Something you might not regularly hear

Here is a take on our newly elected President and his first decisions as President that you might not typically hear on your evening news or in your Paul Krugman editorials in the New York Times.

(HT: Emily Montgomery)

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism

I'm glad someone is talking about this (ht: Simon Jooste). It wasn't too long ago I heard a news story on NPR about how quiting online networking was the new "connectedness." I don't think that really took off the way they wanted it too. With the advent of facebook and other things such as Twitter it looks like if anything, this stuff is getting more popular. It can become an enormous waste of precious time.

I do wish to appraise the good of such things. It is amazingly easier to keep in touch with loved ones via intra-web-fellowship. And much cheaper (i.e. its free if you have internet access, no more calling collect). However, this article I believe is directed at the abuses of such things. I am sorry no one has 100 friends. Read C.S. Lewis on friendship and acquaintance, that will help sort things out. Facebook should have a categories for acquaintance, stranger, and friend. But boy, would that cause a stir. People might go complain to their friends about their status with others...

...In other news
*We are feeling our boy kick quite a bit now, it is most precious, family time is staring and speaking to womb, communicating through touch. Mama loves getting socked all day by our child.
*I am finishing a paper I've been working on awhile now on the topic of Christians and birth control. Boy, I have learned a lot throught this, changed my mind on some things. Wisdom is that fair woman summoning in the public square, we all need to heed. I hand the paper in tommorow and voila, my final semester at seminary begins next week, who'd uh thunk it.
*We have a great albeit secret Valentine's day trip planned. I like to suprise flower pot, and this one is a doozy, can't wait.
*Preparing to preach through Ruth this spring. I love the book of Ruth, its on my all-time favorite short story list. Some folks say American authors invented the short story, hog-stinkin-wash, try the genius of the Hebrew mind.
*Baby likes Vivaldi and Brahms. Pot and Chest had epiphany while listening to Brahms. Take the "We are God's people" hymn in the trinity hymnal and compare it with Brahms first symphony, fourth movement. Its the same exact melody. Is there something to be said about Christians ripping off popular melodies of the day and putting Christian words to them for use in public worship? I don't think this is a new phenomenon with Third Day copping Hootie and selling it to the CCM crowd. Seems like it has been going on for awhile. I don't know what to think about this. And what about Luther and Mighty Fortress and the infamous copping of a bar tune...Yet popular melodies mean the people know the melody and can sing it...but something tells me we should shoot for something better......

...I went to my good buddy's ordination service in the Anglican communion a couple of weeks ago and we did some call and response chanting...It was a good experience for me, i'm stewing on this stuff....