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.

              On the way home from a worship service one day, the preacher’s son complained that church music was boring.  His father challenged him, “If you think you can do better, then you write a song for us to sing.”  Young Isaac, who had a propensity for rhyme, took on the challenge, and the result so impressed his father that he taught it to the congregation, and they also loved it.  So he wrote a new song for the church every week for the next two years!  Thus began the career of Isaac Watts (1674-1748), often called “The Father of English Hymnody.”  He published hundreds of songs which influenced all English speaking churches for generations.  We still sing some of them in churches today.  Many of Watts hymns present his Puritan, Reformed theology in profound or memorable ways.

            Possibly Isaac Watts’ best known song today is “Joy to the World.”  The lyrics of the later, probably lesser-known, verses present great theological thoughts for Christmas.  Notice the Reformed themes of glory, sin and grace:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Have a glorious, Christ-filled Christmas!

            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 haven’t written in this blog because I haven’t had any profound thoughts in over a week.  Now that’s a horrible thing for a teaching pastor.  Imagine that!  The preacher has nothing to say!  But I realize today that not everything a preacher says needs to be exceptionally profound.  A lot of what a preacher says should be reminders of the same old truths.  One of my life verses is Matthew 13:52, which reminds me of this matter.  Jesus said, “Every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”  New treasures as well as old.  Sometimes we need to give up the idea of profound or novel or new and just remind people, and ourselves, of the fundamental doctrines of God and grace.  Of course, even our profound thoughts must be tied to the fundamental doctrines.  Too many preachers look for only the novel.

            This weekend I read Psalm 78, the second longest psalm and second longest chapter in the Bible.  It occurred to me that this psalm is a great Christmas reminder.  There are three sections I noticed, and each has a nice holiday teaching.  Verses 1-8 talk about passing the faith on to the next generation.  Examples include verse 4 “We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.”   The purposes for passing on the faith are these: “That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments, and not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation.”   What better time is there than the holidays and the traditions we build around them, to teach the great Christian truths to our children and grandchildren.  Let’s make sure the traditions we emphasize and those we build anew are ones that teach Jesus.

            The second section (verses 9-39) is really a few sections together that form a pattern of God’s goodness to his people, their rebellion against him, and his mercy in spite of their rebellion.  Over and over the passage mentions the rebellion and stubbornness of the people in the face of God’s goodness.  He brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, but “they still continued to sin against Him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.” (13-17)  He gave them water from the rock and bread right out of heaven, then he gave them the meat they craved, yet, “in spite of all this they still sinned and did not believe in His wonderful works.” (20-32)  Instead the people “would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues.” (36)  Even through all of this “he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.” (38)   That is our story of rebellion also, and in spite of us, God shows us his mercy.  Christmas is a reminder that God offers his grace to us as sinners.

            The third section (40-72) again tells a story of God’s goodness, demonstrated by the plagues in Egypt, followed by his people’s rebellion.  But in this section, God’s mercy was shown in a different fashion; here he gave the people a shepherd.  “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people.”   God gave them a good shepherd to lead them.  So too in our situation, God, in spite of our continued rebellion against him, sent us the Good Shepherd, his Son Jesus.  Christmas is the time to remember God’s mercy in sending us a Shepherd.

            In Titus 2:9-10 Paul says we should make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.  That comment is in an interesting context.  So often, in our world, making the teaching about God more attractive means either changing the content of the message or changing the methods used to present that content.

            The first of those two means I strongly oppose.  In fact, this book of Titus is all about sound doctrine; the theme verse is 2:1 – “speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.”  If we change the content of the gospel, it really isn’t any gospel (i.e. good news) at all.  This is seen especially in the matter of sin.  Too many presentations of the “gospel” water down the fact that we are utterly sinful, but without establishing the matter of our sinfulness, the necessity of the cross is done away with, and Jesus becomes just a friend or helper in our spiritual journeys or a guide who helps reveal God to us.  But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins.  Thus watering down our sin, to make the gospel more attractive, is not presenting the gospel at all.

            The second way Christians make the gospel more attractive is by changing the methods we use to present it.  I am in agreement with doing this, as long as it is the gospel we present and as long as we don’t violate scriptural principle with our new methods.  However, in Titus, it is not the methods that Paul is talking about when he says to make the gospel more attractive; it is character.  Notice the entire sentence of that phrase: “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.”  What makes the teaching of God our Savior attractive is the character of the slave toward his master; not back talking, not stealing, pleasing his master with his work, and proving trustworthy.

            Maybe we should concentrate more on our godly character than on changing our methods of presenting the gospel.  Maybe that concentration would make for more effective evangelism in the long term.

            I was on vacation with my family last week.  We spent the first part of the week in a mountain cabin owned by some friends of ours (a better description would be a nice mountain home, but they call it a cabin).  It was a great time of rest and sabbath — no phone or Internet.  We slept in, read all morning, got out for a walk or cross country ski trip in the afternoon, played games in the evening.  Here is one journal entry from that time and another related devotional thought:

            Psalm 76:4  This morning while I was walking my daughter’s puppy, he suddenly stopped still and smelled the air staring off into the trees.  I noticed some mule deer there.  I picked the little guy up so he could see better, and he watched for a long time.  When we returned to the cabin, I watched the hill where we’d been walking and, from that vantage point, saw a four-point buck and seven does.  We pulled out the binoculars, and my family watched for a long time too.  It was indeed majestic.  However, the majesty of this world is only a glimpse of the real majesty of God.  “You are resplendent with light, more majestic than mountains rich with game.” 

            In his blog this morning, John Piper quoted Spurgeon, in Lectures to My Students, about the need for those in ministry to take such sabbaths:

   A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive.  A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.  

            Amen!  I sure appreciated my time away in the mountains.  I hope the cobwebs are out of the brain!

          When we visited the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, our guide pointed out the pillars in the tabernacle.  They are white pine painted to look like marble; the pews also are white pine, but painted to look like oak.  She seemed strangely proud of that.  What a commentary on the religion.  Everything on the outside is made to look pure and holy, but the inside story is something different.  We were told, by those who studied the demographics, that Utah has one of the highest suicide rates in the country and one of the highest pornography rates in the country.  The outward purity is all show, but they are sinners just like the rest of us.  All their rules don’t change the heart.  In fact, those who claim to be righteous but are not are worse than those who don’t know any better. This is the intent of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees, which I ponderd this morning, in John 9:41.  “Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.’”

          Of course, I can’t point this out without confessing my own sinful nature.  Otherwise I would be completely hypocritical.  I all too often see my utter failure to measure up to God’s standards.  However, the beauty of true grace is that we can confess we are sinful and accept God’s complete forgiveness knowing we don’t have to be good enough, knowing, in fact, we can never be good enough but God offers forgiveness anyway.  When questioned about grace, our guide said, “Grace becomes effective when we’ve done our best.”  She was certain she’d done her best.  That is not grace; that is pine painted to look like marble!

            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.

My nephew Phillip asked me to present a blessing at his graduation service on Friday.  What follows is the summary of that talk:

            Phillip, I’ve known you almost all your life, so when I first pondered giving a blessing for this service, I thought back to one of the first times I was with you.  Your parents went to a conference and left you and Teresa to stay at our house in Alamosa.   You cried for the first twenty-four hours, and I had no idea how to handle that.  Things between us have improved dramatically since then.  Actually, I didn’t have to think long, since I have been preaching through the book of Acts, I thought immediately of a man in that book who’s name is almost the same as yours – Philip (that is Philip with one “l” instead of two).  So my blessing and prayer for you is that you will be like One-L Philip in five specific ways.

            First, the Bible Philip was a man of fullness (that word has two ls).  The first time we meet Philip is in Acts 6:3.  There was need for more leaders in the young church, so the apostles said, “Select from among you seven men of good reputation full of the spirit and of wisdom.”  Philip was full of the Holy Spirit.  The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is given to those who genuinely trust in Jesus Christ (John 7:37-39; Titus 3:4-7; 2 Thess 2:13).  So Philip was one who had a genuine trust in Jesus, and it was evident in his life.  We’ve seen in you evidence of a genuine trust in Christ, and I pray that the Spirit would be even more evident in your life in the days ahead.

            Philip was not just full of the Spirit; he was also full of wisdom.  You’ve often demonstrated a wisdom way beyond your years.  I know in your own family devotions, you often have wisdom searches.  You’ve spent a lot of time in Proverbs and know that book better than I do.  You know “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” (Prov 1:10)  I define fearing God as coming to him on his terms rather than on our own.  Many people try to come to God on their terms, but they miss who he really is.  When you come to God on his terms, then he gives you his direction and he becomes your resource for everything.  My prayer is that you would have a wisdom that not only knows right from wrong, but knows God intimately and finds all your direction and resources in him.

            Second, One-L Philip was a servant.  The position he was chosen for involved serving tables.  The church was growing; food was being distributed to those in need, and they needed help serving the tables of the Greek widows.  Table service is not easy work; it takes a servant heart.  I have seen in you a heart to serve.  I’ve seen it with your siblings; I’ve seen it in the way you help out when you’ve stayed at our house; I’ve seen it most recently in how you help your grandparents.  May your heart to serve grow bigger in the coming years.

            Third, the Philip in Acts was bold (one l in that word).  Particularly, he was bold in obedience.  The next time we see Philip is in Acts 8 and he is demonstrating this bold obedience.  In verse 5 “Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ.”  Considering the history between the Jews and Samaritans, this Jew going to them was a very bold move.  In verse 7 Philip confronts unclean spirits, heals diseases and then addresses a sorcerer.  That is great boldness.  His proclaiming Christ resulted in a huge revival, and right in the middle of leading that revival, God told him to leave.  “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (v.26)  Then Luke adds for emphasis, “This is a desert road.”  It wouldn’t make any sense to me – leave a city where many are coming to know Christ and go out into the desert where no one is.  But Philip boldly obeyed what God told him to do.  When he was on that desert road, he saw the chariot of “a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.”  The Spirit said, “Go up and join this chariot.”  A person doesn’t suddenly approach a royal caravan, but Philip boldly did just that.  Then he was bold enough to talk to the official in the chariot.  All these bold steps were taken because God told him to do those things.  We see that bold obedience in you.  If you were to tell someone all that you did for your ALERT program in Texas, they might think you were crazy, but you did it in obedience to God.  May that boldness to obey God only increase as you grow.

            Fourth, Philip was knowledgeable (two ls) in the Bible.  He proclaimed Christ to the Samaritans, who had part of the Old Testament and were looking for a Messiah – a Christ.  He had to know the Bible to do that.  But more telling is his conversation with the Ethiopian on the desert road.  That man was reading the scroll of Isaiah, and we’re told that Philip began with that very passage of scripture and preached Jesus to him.  He knew his Bible well.  I remember the first year I was in Thornton and working with the AWANA program in our church.  You and James were visiting one week, and the six or eight boys in AWANA complained about how much we were making them learn.  I told them they didn’t know the Bible at all, and then presented a challenge.  I told them our two visitors knew the Bible better than all of them combined.  I went through the AWANA books asking questions, and you soundly defeated them in that challenge.  You’ve always known the Bible well for your age, and I pray you would continue to grow in your knowledge of God’s Word.

            Finally, One-L Philip was an evangelist (one l).  The next, and last, time we see him is many years later in Acts 21:8; he is living in Caesarea and is called an evangelist. He is the only person in the Bible given that title.  He would share with anyone without prejudice: Samaritans, Ethiopians, Romans (Caesarea was a Roman city).  Phillip, may you have a love for all people and a willingness to share the good news of Jesus with them.

            Phillip, you are a man with God’s Spirit in you; may you be a man full of wisdom and knowledge; a man with a servant heart and a passion to share Christ with all; a man who boldly obeys God in everything.

            Uncle Glenn