The church is a Cause (normative), Corporation (situational), and Community (existential) in which Gospel Proclamation (prophet), Gospel Renewal (priest), and Gospel Mission (king) are exercised. We’ve been saying that all three of these are essential for the church to be who she is called to be.

So what leadership qualities are essential for a church to flow in the movement of God’s mission, to the praise of His glory, and the joy and renewal of the saints? I believe there are three things for elders and leaders to consider when looking to develop leaders. We’re going to look at competency, character, and compatibility. Read the rest of this entry »

-Who are we? (What is the essential nature of our humanity?)
-Where are we? (What is the nature of the world around us?)
-What’s gone wrong? (Why is the world in such a mess?)
-What is the solution? (What can we do about it?)

All of us see life through our worldview which interprets major life questions. Most of us are not aware of how we’ve come to believe what we do, and yet this lens colors how we think, feel, and act. Here are some questions to investigate what your worldview is. These seem simple but they are far from simplistic. When we answer such questions it’s good to keep in mind whether or not our lives are affected by our answers.

If you’re tempted to give a quick and simple answer, try to walk through why you believe this to be true. For instance, if you say that the solution is Jesus, draw out why and how Jesus is the solution. If your answer to who we are is “image bearers of God,” why does this matter, why should anyone care? What does it all mean? I’ve found if we can think these thoughts through we are in a better position to help others do the same. If we are fuzzy in our thinking how will we help those who come to us with these same questions?

Preaching the gospel to yourself and to others is an art that all of us must grow in if we seek to see real and lasting change in our lives. It is often assumed the gospel is only for those who have not yet trusted Christ. As we know, this is a faulty view of the gospel and limits its work to a personal salvation experience rather than the explosive power and catalytic dynamic for renewal in our hearts on a continuous basis. To sum up, the life of the Christian is one of continual repentance and belief, without which we slip into a boss/employee, earn/wage, work/rights relationship with our God.

It then becomes the loving responsibility for each of us to run gospel diagnostics to determine whether or not what motivates our heart and lives is “in step” with the gospel (Gal. 2:14).

Here are some gospel questions to ask ourselves: Read the rest of this entry »

Our Triune God is omniperspectival and sees all perspectives simultaneously. This should humble us and cause us to seek other perspectives to gain a richer understanding of His truth since it shows us that we have a very limited view of things. God gave us the Gospels in four perspectives. This was for our benefit just as much as it was for the Jews, Romans, Greeks, and all other Gentiles. He could have given us only one perspective and yet we are richly blessed to view the life and work of Christ through different lenses. Why? Because we learn more about Him through these perspectives, but this is tangential.

Prophet Perspective:

If we tend towards a prophet perspective, meaning that we are normatively and theologically inclined, we will often look at the text with a grid of systematic theology. This means that we read a passage of Scripture and almost instinctively think of the passage under its neatly categorized theological heading. We see the text as support for the bigger theological topics in an almost apologetic way.

We may use words like “I think x,” or “I know x.” This perspective is primarily cognitive. Its strengths are often the ability to untie complex theological knots. A prophet is more concerned with ensuring the soundness of what they are saying as the primary concern. Someone who reads the text almost exclusively in a normative way will be more concerned with whether or not something is true rather than how it makes others feel or whether or if it is practical and applicable. If you know anything about multiperspectivalism you realize that this can lead to a good and necessary perspective taken too far without proper concern for the other perspectives.

The besetting sin of the prophet is usually arrogance, intellectualism, poor listening skills, and an overbearing demeanor. Prophets often slip into “fix” mode before listening and usually assume their position is correct and often offend the people to whom they’re speaking. A normatively driven person may hear from his wife “what you said was right, it was biblical, but the way you said it was rude.” For the normatively driven prophet, they may find themselves feeling misunderstood intellectually as well as socially.

Prophets are usually bulldogs who drop bombs on a forest to clear it but aren’t very good and setting up the buildings or caring for people unless they grow in their kingly and priestly roles. Read the rest of this entry »

Our Church (Kaleo) has recently joined the historical and universal church by plunging into the great book of Acts. As we’ve looked week after week at the incredible vast release of energy which empowered the early church I purposely chose a word which, to me, seems to best describe what we’re attempting here in San Diego.

We’ve been using the word ‘transformission‘ quite regularly over these last few weeks. I thought I would take a couple of minutes and simply describe what we’re thinking.

1-Gospel transformation is different from moral reformation. It is absolutely possible, and even common, for newer and older Christians to assume that to believe the gospel means that you’ve become a moral/pious person. I’m certainly not suggesting that moral piety does not result from gospel transformation, but moral piety doesn’t need gospel transformation to occur, nor does it ensure that a deep heart transformation has taken place. Read the rest of this entry »

As we were working through this issue of asking questions and leading people to find answers, it struck me that the principles we use to best understand the text of Scripture and thus know Christ who is revealed in Scripture are not followed when we attempt to get to know people. Now, taking for granted that people are not the full desposit of God’s wisdom, nor are people the final court of arbitration on matters of objective truth, however, people that know Christ are given the same Holy Spirit which inspired the text and their perspective is often very, very significant and profound especially when we desire to grow in Christ.

I say this to make the point that we often attempt to input our own perspective and opinion when relating to people rather than drawing out from them who they really are and allowing them to give us differing view that might disagree with our perspective. When we ask questions of Biblical text we are seeking to best understand what the author intended to say to a particular people group to then discover what the ultimate Author (the Holy Spirit) was speaking through the author. The entire point of asking questions of the text is to learn, not to input our own meaning into the text. To exegete is to draw out, to eisogete is to put in. We often come to the text to put in what we want the text to say. It is no wonder that we do that same in our relationships, even the ones we consider dear and close.

How much better a pastor, husband, and father would I be if I spent more time working to understand what it is that someone is thinking, saying, and feeling rather than trying to get them to think, say, and feel what I believe is important?

It is true that the besetting sin of preachers is arrogance. I pray the Gospel continues to work in my heart in such a way that I see less and less the need to prove my righteousness rather than trusting in the One that developed a righteousness on my behalf and gave it to my by faith to release me from the slavery of pursuing my own.

We are sitting in a coaching session as Bob Logan helps us to understand how important it is for us to ask good questions. This stuff is golden. I have definitely fallen into the trap of assuming I can provide most answers to most questions rather than assisting others to discover these answers on their own while helping to guide them through asking sigifnicant and important questions.

I’ll try to post some of these questions later.

I’m heading out this morning to Seattle for the Resurgence conference as well as the A29 bootcamp. I’ll try to give daily uploads while I’m there so that you can get a taste of what’s going on.

Oh, by the way, the forecast for the next 10 days? Rain