Pastor Glenn’s Weblog

            Totally entertaining.  It was, for us, the best movie of the year:  Amazing animation, very funny, deeply moving, an awesome adventure, good morals, pro-family, no bad language, and no sexual overtones.  My family just watched “Up,” and it is all of that which I’ve described.  Certainly the best all around entertainment on film we’ve seen in a long time.  We laughed, we cried, we cheered.  From Pixar Animations Studios, I’ve seen Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Wall-e, and Finding Nemo.  All of them have been fun entertainment, excellent movies in my estimation, but Up surpasses them all.

            Some lessons that could be discussed from this movie include:  Faithfulness to keep promises; faithfulness in marriage; moving on after major life changes – especially to continue investing in significant things.  If you need some great New Year’s entertainment, try this fun film.

            PJ Tibayan has written a number of posts on the idea of a “senior pastor” in church.  I just ran across these today.  I agree with most all his arguments and conclusions.  Here is an article that links many of his thoughts.

http://pjtibayan.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/resources-on-the-biblical-basis-of-senior-pastor/

I had to comment because of the unique roll I play here at Village:

            These comments and links are great.  For years I’ve disagreed with the senior pastor idea for many of the reasons you cite here.  Currently I am the “Preaching Pastor” at a Baptist church in Colorado.  We are an elder led church with four lay elders and two pastor or full-time elders.  The other full time pastor handles education, counseling and administration.  I teach and preach.  I also lead the staff meetings and prepare the agenda for the elder meetings.  I’ve been here for over seven years, and so far, it has worked well.  I have three observations about this arrangement that you might find interesting.

            First, no mater how often it is explained, I am viewed by many as “the” pastor or as the “lead pastor,” because I am the one up front.  Some people have even challenged the arrangement saying, “but certainly you are (or in some cases, must be) the leader of the others.”  The idea of lead/senior pastor is so engrained in the minds of Christians in this culture, that they can’t understand what we believe is the biblical model.

            Second, some church growth experts will tell us that this team approach to ministry is a slow and inefficient way to make decisions.  With that I must agree.  However, I have seen too many abuses of the one-man-in-charge approach, and I know the depths of my own depravity, so I don’t want to be the one man in charge.  I would rather be inefficient and right, than efficient and wrong.

            Third, for this model to work, everyone must be a team player.  Any pastor who thinks he is in charge, or thinks he should be in charge, could never work in a real elder-team environment.  Unfortunately, I have met way too many men in ministry who take a “God called me, so I am the leader” approach to the church.  That attitude ignores the seriousness of sin.

Blessings in Jesus,

GG

            I just returned from a one-day “vision” trip to Utah. I went with some other pastors from Converge Rocky Mountain to meet two new church planters we have appointed and to see the areas where they will be planting. It was an absolutely fascinating trip, and I could write pages about it. Here is the brief summary of my biggest impressions.

            We first attended part of a seminar for pastors and church planters in Utah at K-2 Church in Salt Lake City. WOW! God is really working in northern Utah. The testimonies of the men there indicated how God has been softening hearts of people in recent years. One church, less than five years old, has over 1,000 in attendance each week; one pastor reported 450 baptisms in the past two years; long-term pastors told how much more open the area is to the gospel now than ever; one man said God is thawing the spiritual coldness of the state. Utah is an unreached people group – less than 2% of the population attends a Bible–believing church. But that is changing, and we have an opportunity to get in on the amazing things God is doing.

            Second, we traveled to a Mormon temple on a hill overlooking some communities south of Salt Lake where Charles Hill has located and plans to begin his work. We saw an area with about 100,000 people now and over 20,000 homes scheduled to be built in the next few years. There is not one Protestant church in the area – not one! That would be like our communities of Thornton and Westminster together (200,000) without a church.

            We also traveled to Centerville, north of Salt Lake, where Loren Pankratz is looking to plant. We stood on a plot of ground he has purchased for a family home. He showed us all the homes being built within just a few blocks of his. The population is 20,000 and expected to grow by 20,000 more in just a few years. Again, there is not one Protestant church in that town and in the adjoining community.

           Between these two stops we visited the Temple Square in the middle of Salt Lake City. To hear Loren gently question the young missionary lady that approached us was an education in itself. Certainly God has raised up this young man for just such a ministry. 

            May God continue to work in Utah, raising up laborers for the harvest and drawing people to himself.

Dear Pastor Glenn

          At the seniors conference I attended in ______, the pastor who led some of the Bible studies was giving a list of sins that  people who commit them won’t get into heaven.  Homosexuality was named.  My acquaintance from Texas was raised in Baptist circles that taught “once saved, always saved.”  This lady’s brother went through a very ugly divorce, and turned to homosexuality.  In his last days, at his request, the sister prayed, read scripture, and reminisced about their growing up in the church, accepting Christ and being baptized.  At the conference, she was grieving his recent death.  Then to hear this “preacher” say that homosexuals won’t get to heaven devastated her.  I was wondering about scriptures that could encourage this woman in her heart ache.

 Dear ______,

          I’m sorry your friend had to put up with this heretical teaching that so upset her, and I’m appalled that the conference would allow someone to teach things that seem so totally incompatible with their stated doctrine.  I can only assume something was misunderstood somewhere, though there are people out there who believe that way.

          I suppose the idea that homosexuals can never get to heaven comes from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which says “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”  You can see the idea there; if you simplify the sentence, it can read “homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

          However, I want you to notice the entire context of that statement.  First, it also says that thieves, greedy people, slanderers and drunkards will not inherit the kingdom either.  I bet those middle two disqualify the preacher who said homosexuals cannot get to heaven!  In fact those statements would disqualify most all of us; I know they disqualify me.  We could add David, Abraham (adultery), Noah (drunkenness), and even Paul (slanderer) to the list of those who won’t make it.  The point is that all of us are sinners and none of us can, on our own merits, inherit God’s kingdom.  It takes God’s grace to give us that kingdom.  This is similar to Jesus’ famous statement about the rich, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”  He followed that with these words, “with men this is impossible, but all things are possible with God.”  It takes a miracle of God for anyone to be saved.

          Second, notice the very next verse.  It clearly proves wrong any preacher who says homosexuals can’t go to heaven.  Paul adds for his readers, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (v11)  Notice the past tense.  Some of his readers were homosexuals in the past, but now they are sanctified believers!

            The consistent witness of the New Testament echoes Jesus words, “Every sin and blasphemy of men will be forgiven them.”  The only unforgivable sin is a rejection of Jesus.  You can read my teaching about that here.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace.  He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness; he forgave all our transgressions; he gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness; etc.  When a person trusts in Jesus, God counts Jesus’ righteousness on that person’s account.  On God’s ledger, such a person is no longer a homosexual, or a slanderer or greedy person either.  I hope this can encourage your friend.

In the grip of his grace,  Pastor Glenn

          Pastor Glenn’s sermons at Village Baptist Church are now available for download or listening on line.  Now available are most all the sermons in the current study of Acts and a few popular past messages, including the most-requested “Rebekah: Finding God’s Best,” “A Sabbath Fireside Chat,” and “What is the Will of God?”  There are some sound issues with a few of them, due to past sound system problems.  The Technology Team at Village has done a great job improving these recordings and fixing the sound system problems.  As future messages are added, the sound quality will improve dramatically.

          Thanks Village Tech Team!

Go to the Village Baptist website and click on the “Worship” tab.

Happy Listening!

This isn’t an Aprils Fool’s Day joke.  You have reached Pastor Glenn’s blog; it just looks different.  Today marks one year since I began this blog, so I decided to change the look for a while.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank all who have been reading these scattered thoughts over the months.  If God has used anything said here for growth or encouragement in your lives, then he gets all the glory.

For those who are interested, here is a summary of the most read postings I’ve made over the last year.  If you haven’t read these, they might be worth your time.  By far my most read blog has been one of the earliest ones called “Micaiah and Today’s False Prophets.”  This post continues to find new readers almost a year after I wrote it.  The second most read article is called “Burnout in Ministry.”   The fact that I’ve linked a few other articles to this one has probably helped, but I think it is an issue many deal with on a regular basis.  And tied with that one for second is “Life Can Be Empty.”  This article is a presentation of the Gospel using the book of Ecclesiastes, and because of it’s nature, I linked to it in the sidebar hoping it would get more readers.  (Now I see it’s on the top of the page)  Finally the fourth most read blog has been the recent “John Piper on the TNIV.”

Thanks again for reading.  May God, out of his glorious riches, strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge –that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I read Dr. Pegler’s musings the other day.  After talking about greed verses the desire for improvement in an economic system of capitalism, he asks the question, “From this, can we conclude that a form of capitalism is more in tune with our being made in the image of God than other economic systems?”  He makes a good point.  You can read his article here.

My first response and my comment to his article was along the lines that greed cannot drive capitalism, because to make a buck in capitalism one must meet the needs of others.  (You can read that comment in the link above also.)  After writing my comment, I was reminded of an e-mail someone sent me about the differences between a liberal and a conservative.  There I hinted that capitalism is the most biblical economic system because it puts a check on human depravity.  I did some digging and found the text of that exchange:

Dear Pastor Glenn,

You may have heard this before, but George Will was on TV last night and was asked the difference between conservatives and liberals. His response was:  “A conservative is most concerned with freedom, and is willing to accept inequities in outcome to preserve it.  A liberal is most concerned with equality of outcome, and is willing to accept limitations on freedoms to achieve it.”

I liked it because I thought it was concise, fair and relatively accurate.

Dear  .  .  . ,

It’s been months, and I haven’t yet responded to this e-mail, but I have thought about it often since you sent it.  I have two comments:

1.     I always thought a conservative, at least on an economic level, is concerned with equality of opportunity over equality in outcome.  I suppose one could say that true freedom would imply equality of opportunity – the idea behind a “free” market.  The more I thought about it, the more I thought George Will might be right.

2.     If Will’s definition of a liberal is right, it seems to me that the liberal view, again on an economic level, will always lead to communism.  There will be fewer and fewer freedoms as we strive to achieve greater and greater equality.  However, because of depravity, there never will be equality of outcome until there are no freedoms left.  The reason most Christians are fiscal conservatives is because a genuine free market actually puts a check on our depravity – it forces us to use our greed to meet the needs of others!

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Glenn

Any economic system that gets away from a free market, allows the greedy people in power to become wealthy a the expense of the common people.  A truly free market limits that abuse.

Does anyone else have some other thoughts?