The Best of the Best Around the Net

One of my passions is bridge-building, connecting, and highlighting other ministries and ministry resources—so that the Body of Christ is built up and Christ is magnified (Ephesians 4:15-16). My weekly post, The Best of the Best Around the Net, links you to blog posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. Check out the following links you can trust.

Strategic Discipleship

Over at Church Matters, the blog site for 9Marks Ministry, Pastor Deepak Reju has posted a very helpful blog on “Picking Fruit Off of a Tree.” He explores practical principles for discipling leaders.

Scandalous

John Bird over at Discerning Reader reviews D. A. Carson’s Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. “In his inimitable style, Carson returns us to where we must forever dwell theologically: Christ’s cross and resurrection.” Read the rest of John’s review here.

6 Views on Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

I normally don’t post about my own post, however, this really isn’t “my” post. I’ve updated a post where I link you to six different views on McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity. If you’re interested in what to make of this book, visit here.

What Is the Character of God and Why Does It Matter to Me?

Ed Welch of the CCEF has a very practical blog where he asks, “Is God Picky?”. How we see God is the most important thing about us.

Ingredients of Successful Blogs

Michael Hyatt is the leading Christian thinker about Web 2.0, social networking, blogging, ministry-based-marketing, etc. In this post, he invites a guest blogger to discuss “The Third Ingredient of a Successful Blog”. Also find the links to the first two posts in the series. What good does it do if you write a great blog, but nobody reads it? Or, put another way, “If a blog is written in the woods, does anyone see it?”

Join the Conversation

Of my Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why?

What blog posts have you read this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Best of the Net, Carson, CCEF, Discerning Reader, Ed Welch

A Conversation about Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

Responding to Brian McLaren’s Question # 2: The Authority Question

Welcome: You’re reading “Part 4” of my blog series responding to Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity (read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here). Many have engaged Brian’s thinking by focusing on a systematic theology response (visit here for a boatload of links). My focus is on pastoral theology or practical theology. As a pastor, counselor, and professor who equips the church for biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m asking: “What difference does our response to each question make for how we care like Christ (biblical counseling) and for how we live like Christ (spiritual formation)?”

The Question of the Bible’s Sufficiency

Brian’s second question is the authority question. How should we understand the Bible? He’s asking, What is the Bible and what is it for? He feels a moral obligation to revisit how we view the Bible.

In defending his revisioning of Scripture, Brian again resorts to caricature. He speaks of preachers passionately decrying psychology because they see the only relevant biblical categories being disobedience and demon possession (p. 68). Well, many of us decry secular psychological assumptions that seek to understand the creature apart from the Creator. However, many of us have spent our lives developing a biblical psychology—a robust understanding of people, problems, and solutions derived from a Bible that we cherish as sufficient, authoritative, relevant, and profound. (See my Soul Physicians for one example.)

He says we’re steering our ship by wrestling with biblical passages in a simple “thou shalt not” way, and thus paralyzed in solving major life-and-death issues (p. 69). Well, many of us have been in the trenches wrestling with real people with real problem, thinking deeply with them about how God’s story intersects with their story. (See my Spiritual Friends for one example.)

Brian further claims that the Bible “offers us no clear categories for many of our most significant and vexing socioethical quandaries” (p. 68). Wow. Some of us talk about the sufficiency, authority, relevancy, and profundity of Scripture for biblical counseling and spiritual formation. Brian presents the insufficiency, incapacity, irrelevance, and shallowness of Scripture for life and ministry.

Read with confidence and applied with wisdom, the Bible offers us categories for thinking about everything we need for daily life and godly living (2 Peter 1:3; Hebrews 4:12-16; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Philippians 1:9-11; Colossians 2:3-10). I’m baffled as I attempt to visualize a pastoral counseling session from Brian’s perspective of the Bible. In Spiritual Friends I offer 1,000s of sample “spiritual conversations” and “scriptural explorations” all based upon the sufficiency, authority, relevancy, and profundity of God’s Word. What would Brian offer (WWBO)?

WWBO: What Would Brian Offer?

Reading the three chapters in which Brian shares his view of Scripture, I felt like I was watching an episode of American Idol. If Simon Cowell was responding, he might have said, “Sorry, Brian, but that was a mess.” I could almost hear Randy Jackson saying, “Listen dude. Yo dawg. For me for you; I just didn’t get it. It was pitchy and karaoke.”

Brian’s Bible is filled with internal inconsistencies (p. 81) because his Bible is neither authoritative nor inspired (pp. 82-83). His Bible was never intended to provide answers to deep questions, but rather to stimulate conversations without any final direction (p. 92).

Why? Because for Brian the God of the Bible (using Job as an example) is “not the actual God necessarily, but the imagined God, the author’s best sense of God, the fictional character playing God for the sake of this dramatic work of art” (p. 94). Try telling that to the person in the midst of horrible life suffering. Try telling that to the person in need of empowered wisdom to break the chains of a besetting sin.

WWJS: What Would Jesus Say?

Brian sees the Bible through evolutionary lenses. In each generation, it was the current best attempt to conceptualize who God is, who we are, how we relate to God and to one another. We need to come to the Bible with more enlightened eyes, more evolved insight—according to Brian.

Brian also says that he wants us to return to the place where we look at the Bible through Jesus’ eyes. He says he is “a follower of Jesus and a devoted student of the Bible” (p. 83). Taking him at his word, I want us to ask together, “What would Jesus say?” Did Jesus see the Bible the way Brian sees it?

Jesus tells us that “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). In the midst of personal suffering, trials, and temptations, Jesus clung to and exhorted us to cling to the sufficient, authoritative, relevant, and profound Word of God.

Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18). In the midst of a sermon on personal, social ethics Jesus related Old Testament truth to daily life, in so doing teaching us to trust in the sufficiency, authority, relevancy, and profundity of Scripture for life, ministry, and relationships today.

Clearly, we can all misinterpret and misapply Scripture. No one should claim that their interpretation or application is inspired or inerrant. However, that’s infinitely different from claiming that the Bible itself is not inspired or inerrant. That’s why we must interpret and apply the Bible humbly in community. Humbly—but with confidence that God’s Word provides the wisdom we need to love God and others. Without that humble confidence in the sufficiency, authority, relevancy, and profundity of Scripture we have no basis for biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

The Rest of the Story

In our next post, we explore the God question. Brian asks, “Is God violent?” We respond to his response—through the lens of biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Join the Conversation

What view of and use of the Bible do you follow as you minister God’s Word to hurting and hardened, suffering and sinning people?

Tags: A New Kind of Christianity, Biblical Counseling, Brian McLaren, McLaren, Sufficiency of Scripture

A Conversation about Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

Responding to Brian McLaren’s Question # 1: The Narrative Question

Welcome: You’re reading “Part 3” of my blog series responding to Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity (read Part 1 here and Part 2 here). Many have engaged Brian’s thinking by focusing on a systematic theology response (visit here to see a boatload of links). My focus is on “pastoral theology” or “practical theology.” As a pastor, counselor, and professor who equips the church for biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m asking: “What difference does our response to each question make for how we care like Christ (biblical counseling) and for how we live like Christ (spiritual formation)?”

What’s the Big Idea?

Brian’s first question asks, What is the overarching story line of the Bible? He’s asking what are the deep problems that the original Christian story was trying to solve? What’s the big picture?

Brian claims that the traditional answer to these questions are radically informed by what he calls the Greco-Roman narrative, and thus in turn influenced by Platonic thought and Roman imperialism. That he doesn’t lend any historical support to this major contention is problematic. Much worse, however, is the straw man he fashions. One can’t even say it’s a caricature or a stereotype. That would imply that the version he presents as the traditional Christian meta-narrative is anywhere near what anyone actually teaches.

What Brian’s addressing is the “CFR Narrative”—the Creation, Fall, Redemption story line of the Bible. One hardly recognizes it in Brian’s hands. I’ve authored two books on church history and studied church history for 25 years. I’ve never once read anyone’s view of the CFR Narrative that sounds the least bit like Brian’s straw man. In fact, let’s all agree. Brian, the Greco-Roman narrative is not Christian. You detest that view. So do I.

The CCFRC Narrative

Now that we’re in agreement with Brian that the Greco-Roman narrative fails the Christian test, let’s do what we came here to do. Let’s ask, “What difference does our response to the narrative question make for how we care like Christ (biblical counseling) and for how we live like Christ (spiritual formation)?”

The CFR narrative, as actually taught in historic Christianity, is really the CCFRC narrative.

*Community: The eternal community of Oneness shared by the Trinity.

*Creation: God’s original design of the universe and of the nature of human nature.

*Fall: Humanity’s fall into sin.

*Redemption: God’s solution to humanity’s problem—salvation in Christ.

*Consummation: Eternity future.

These five meta-narrative themes, plus two core questions about truth and ministry, provide us with life’s seven ultimate questions. By addressing these seven questions, we offer a biblical counseling and spiritual formation response to Brian’s narrative question.

Life’s Seven Ultimate Questions

In our post-modern generation shaped by relativism, even the Church is filled with differing views on the largest issues of life and ministry. The question that defines us more than any other is: “Upon what do we base our life and ministry?” Here are seven truths that must shape the way we see life and ministry. They teach us what makes biblical ministry truly biblical.

1. Question 1: “What is truth? Where do I find answers?”

Answer 1—The Word: “God’s Word is sufficient, authoritative, profound, and relevant.”

All that we need for life and godliness we find in Scripture (the written Word). In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (the Living Word). We live and breathe every nano-second not by bread alone, but by the Word of God. Therefore, in life and ministry every question is ultimately a God-question and every answer is fundamentally a God-answer.

2. Question 2: “Who is God?”

Answer 2—The Creator: “God is Trinitarian.”

God is not the “alone with the alone.” The God of the Universe is, always has been, and always will be Three-in-One, communitarian, Trinitarian. Before God created, He related. Thus God created us not out of need, but graciously from the overflow of infinite Trinitarian fellowship. Reality is relational because God is Trinitarian. Therefore, in life and ministry our purpose is to enjoy and glorify God as we combine Scripture and soul, truth and love.

3. Question 3: “Who am I”?

Answer 3—Creation: “We are created with dignity by God in the image of Christ.”

I am not an accident. I am fearfully and wonderfully made with the purpose of worshipful fellowship with the God of the universe and sacrificial one-another fellowship with my fellow human beings. Together we are to enjoy God by glorifying Him forever as we fulfill our calling as stewards of His universe. Therefore, in life and ministry our goal is to reflect increasingly the inner life of Christ.

4. Question 4: “What went wrong?”

Answer 4—The Fall: “We sinfully and foolishly choose god-substitutes over God.”

The only explanation for sin and suffering is humanity’s fall into rebellion initiated by Adam and Eve and continued to this day by every person who ever lived. We sinfully forsake and attempt to replace God because we have lost our awe of God and chosen to love false gods. Therefore, in life and ministry we must recognize and confess that our core problem is spiritual adultery.

5. Question 5: “Can we change? How do people change?”

Answer 5—Redemption: “We must apply our complete salvation to our daily sanctification.”

Our only hope for change is our acceptance by faith of God’s grace in Christ. Those who are new creations in Christ can change because they have already been changed. Justification (our new pardon), reconciliation (our new peace), regeneration (our new purity), and redemption (our new power) provide the four-fold basis for daily growth into the image of Christ. Therefore, in life and ministry our identity in Christ is foundational to our transformation in Christ.

6. Question 6—“Where am I headed? What is my destiny?”

Answer 6—Glorification: “Heaven is my final home.”

For those who enter into eternal relationship with God in Christ, our destiny is endless relationship and purpose—sacred communion within God’s holy and happy family. The biblical answer to the question of ultimate destiny ought to impact drastically how we live today—our future destiny impacts our present reality. Therefore, in life and ministry, reading the end of the story makes all the difference in how we respond to present suffering and how we overcome besetting sins.

7. Question 7—“Can I help? How can I help?”

Answer 7—Sanctification/Ministry: “We dispense God’s cure for the soul—grace.”

Grace is God’s prescription for our disgrace—the disgrace of sin and the disgrace of suffering. Grace is God’s medicine of choice for our sinful and suffering world. God calls us to be dispensers of His grace which sustains and heals us in our suffering, which reconciles and guides us in our sin, and which moves us toward sanctification in Christ. Therefore, in life and ministry we must be dispensers of grace.

The Life of the Soul through the Lens of the Scriptures

These seven biblical categories are essential for seeing the life of the soul through the lens of the Scriptures. The biblical meta-narrative is absolutely vital because these relevant biblical categories address life’s seven ultimate questions that every honest person asks.

Rather than being some Greco-Roman invention based upon some contrived Platonic and imperialistic concepts, the biblical CCFRC Narrative offers God’s authoritative wisdom for how we minister to one another for His glory. Omit these and we have no “practical theology,” no “pastoral theology.” That’s what we lose if we accept Brian’s straw man attack on the historic CFR Narrative.

The Rest of the Story

In our next post, we’ll respond to Brian’s second question, the authority question: How should the Bible be understood? We’ll ask that question through the lens of biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Join the Conversation

What is the Bible’s meta-narrative and what difference does it make in real life?

Tags: A New Kind of Christianity, Biblical Counseling, Brian McLaren, McLaren, Spiritual Formation

A Conversation about Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

A Biblical Counseling Response to Brian McLaren

Welcome: You’re reading “Part 2” of my blog series responding to Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity (visit here for Part 1). Many have engaged Brian’s thinking by focusing on a systematic theology response (visit here to see a boatload of links). My focus is on “pastoral theology” or “practical theology.” As a pastor, counselor, and professor who equips the church for biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m accepting Brian’s invitation to interact about the implications of his views for the everyday life of one-another Christianity—“the personal ministry of the Word.”

What’s Biblical Counseling Got to Do with It?

Brian talks about his quest throughout A New Kind of Christianity. I’ve been on a quest also. I’ve spent the past quarter-century developing a theology of the spiritual life. As a pastor, professional counselor, and seminary professor, I’ve relentlessly sought to understand how to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth.

In my preaching and teaching ministry, I’ve called it “the pulpit ministry of the Word.” How do we proclaim Christ’s changeless truth for our changing times in order to change lives?

In my one another ministry to people, I’ve called it “the personal ministry of the Word.” How do we engage in spiritual conversations with people using Christ’s changeless truth for our changing times in order to change lives?

I also call this personal ministry of the Word “biblical counseling and spiritual formation.” So that you know what I mean by these terms, I offer my summary definition:

Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling and spiritual formation depend upon the Holy Spirit to relate God’s inspired truth about people, problems, and solutions to human suffering (through the Christian soul care arts of sustaining and healing) and sin (through the Christian spiritual direction arts of reconciling and guiding) to empower people to exalt and enjoy God and to love others (Matthew 22:35-40) by cultivating conformity to Christ and communion with Christ and the Body of Christ.

People sometimes ask why I would relate and equate biblical counseling and spiritual formation. To me, that’s a no-brainer. The goal, the end game, of biblical counseling is to form us increasingly into the image of Christ—spiritual formation (how we live like Christ). The personal process of helping others in their spiritual formation involves loving relationships that connect the Bible to daily life—biblical counseling (how we care like Christ).

As Adrian Monk would say, “Here’s the thing.” I’m responding to Brian McLaren’s book through the lens of biblical counseling and spiritual formation. For each of his ten questions, I’ll be asking and pondering:

“What difference does our response to this question make for how we care like Christ (biblical counseling) and for how we live like Christ (spiritual formation)?”

Seems like a vital quest and an important question to me. If you agree, then please keep reading.

Biblical Counseling and the Sufficiency of Scripture

A good friend and colleague in ministry asked me an insightful question yesterday. “What is Brian saying that is persuasive to so many? What can we learn?”

I think people are attracted to what Brian is saying because he’s asking honest questions. He’s asking how we relate the words of the Bible written centuries ago from a very different cultural perspective to our changing culture today. He’s also saying that there’s something wrong with the way many people are trying to do this today.

Brian is attempting to understand and “exegete” Scripture, soul, and society. He’s spot on regarding the need to do all three of these.

Unfortunately, in some Evangelical circles, we’ve done great work in exegeting and studying Scripture, but we’ve done lesser work in understanding people and culture. So we end up answering questions no one is asking. We end up listening to God’s story but ignoring or only half listening to the human story of suffering, sin, struggle, and sanctification. We end up giving people Scripture but not our souls, truth apart from relationship, content apart from community.

Into this void steps Brian McLaren.

Sadly, in my opinion, Brian’s exegesis of Scripture is off target. More specifically, I think he lacks confidence in the sufficiency, authority, relevancy, and profundity of God’s Word (strong words, I know—and I’ll engage each of his ten questions in detail to explain why I would make this claim).

So where does this leave people? Either with Scripture or soul/society. They either receive God’s truth unrelated to real life, or they receive human reason related to real life.

This is where biblical counseling and the sufficiency of Scripture comes into play. In true biblical counseling, truth and love kiss. The biblical counselor’s prayer is the Apostle Paul’s prayer: “that our love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight” (Philippians 1:9). The biblical counselor’s model is the Apostle Paul: “I loved you so much that I gave you not only the Scriptures, but my own soul, because you were dear to me” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). The biblical counselor’s method is the Apostle Paul’s method in Acts 17 where Paul studied the Athenian culture, engaged them in culturally-aware spiritual conversations, and shared with them the sufficient, authoritative truth of Scripture.

In my opinion, even some biblical counselors have gotten this wrong over the years. We’ve believed in the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture, but in practice we’ve minimized the relevancy and profundity (profound depth of relational insight) of Scripture. We’ve engaged, at times, in the non-relational giving of simplistic answers, rather than engaging in the intimate sharing of robust spiritual conversations that seek to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth. It’s not enough to believe in the sufficiency of Scripture if we do not equally believe in the relevancy of Scripture. It’s not enough to believe in the authority of Scripture, if we do not equally believe in the profundity of Scripture. (I think this is equally true in the pulpit ministry of the Word, but that’s a conversation for another blog series.)

Again, into this void steps Brian McLaren.

His answer, as he steps in, as I see it, is to offer people changing truth for changing times. Re-read that sentence. Let it sink in.

The biblical counseling and sufficiency of Scripture answer is to offer changeless truth for changing time. Throughout this blog series, I’ll respond to Brian’s ten questions and I’ll compare and contrast his responses to a biblical counseling response.

Spiritual Formation and Progressive Sanctification

Brian launches his book by saying that there’s something wrong and something real. Part of the something wrong in Brian’s mind is the fact that the church is out of touch with the culture—we’re not asking the soul/society questions. The something real in Brian’s mind is a new kind of Christianity. Brian wants this Christianity to be a Christ-centered Christianity.

This is where spiritual formation and progressive sanctification come into play. Progressive sanctification is the process by which, over time, through the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the people of God, we increasingly reflect the inner life of the Son of God and we increasingly impact our society for Christ.

In Brian’s mind, too much so-called biblical preaching has focused on doctrine apart from life. And, too much so-called biblical ministry (including biblical counseling) has focused on simplistic proclamations and exhortations apart from the mess and muck of real and raw life and apart from a Christ-like concern for society.

To whatever extent these charges are true…we preachers and counselors ought to repent.

If we don’t…then into this void steps Brian McLaren. He steps in saying “we need not a new set of beliefs, but a new way of believing” (p. 18). He’s on a quest for “new ways to live and serve faithfully in the way of Jesus” (p. 18).

Rather than simply criticizing his way of stepping in, we need to step in with true spiritual formation that enters the mess and muck of life with real and raw relating that combines Scripture, soul, and society to relate changeless truth to change lives to be more like Christ and to change our world for Christ.

Brian’s goal—a Christ-centered Christianity with Christ-like Christians—is totally laudable. Throughout this series we’ll probe whether or not Brian’s ten responses to his ten questions get us there.

The Rest of the Story

I know…kinda’ a long introduction. I know…you want to get to the ten questions. It’s coming. But if I’m going to tackle A New Kind of Christianity through the lens of biblical counseling and spiritual formation, then you deserve to know what in the world I mean by those terms and how I intend to relate them to Brian’s book. So, in our next post, we’ll get to Brian’s first question, the narrative question. What is the overarching story line of the Bible? We’ll respond to his response by exploring the Bible’s meta-narrative through the lens of biblical counseling and spiritual formation.

Join the Conversation

How would you answer my friend’s penetrating question: What is Brian saying that is persuasive to so many? What can we learn?”

Tags: A New Kind of Christianity, Biblical Counseling, McLaren, Spiritual Formation

A Conversation about Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity

Brian McLaren, I Accept Your Invitation

Welcome: You’re reading “Part 1” of my blog series responding to Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity. Many people have engaged Brian’s thinking—most focusing on a systematic theology response (you can visit here to see a boatload of links). I’m thankful for their foundational responses. My focus is on “pastoral theology” or “practical theology.” As a pastor, counselor, and professor who equips the church for biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m accepting Brian’s invitation to interact about the implications of his views for the everyday life of one-another Christianity—the “personal ministry of the Word.” My posts will be periodic so I can intelligently, carefully, fairly, and thoroughly engage Brian’s thinking.

Brian’s Invitation

Throughout A New Kind of Christianity Brian invites conversation. He calls it an invitation for discussion not a “debate that creates hate” (p. 17). Using a sports’ analogy, Brian writes about his views, “They are offered as a gentle serve or lob; their primary goal is to start the interplay, to get things rolling, to invite reply” (p. 23). Brian also notes concerning those who may disagree with him that, “We welcome their charitable critique” (p. 25). In summary he says, “This quest must instead work more like a wedding proposal, an invitation. It must be about free conversation, not forced conversion” (p. 27).

To this generic invite, Brian adds a very specific invitation to pastors and counselors. When I read the following words, my ears perked up higher than Mr. Spock from Star Trek.

“This Greco-Roman framing may help explain why Christian pastors and counselors have such a hard time convincing Christians that God actually loves them” (p. 266).

Game On

Until reading that quote, my plan was to let the “theologians” converse with Brian. Of course, theology intimately relates to everyday life, so I should have been willing to join the conversation from the get-go. But when I read that quote, it was “Game on.” Brian had served up his “gentle lob” and I would volley back.

This is why the specific emphasis of my tennis match, er, conversation, with Brian focuses on:

What are the implications of A New Kind of Christianity for “the personal ministry of the Word”—biblical counseling, spiritual formation, pastoral counseling, pastoral care, Christian counseling, one another ministry, soul care, spiritual direction, spiritual friendship, and personal discipleship?

Call it whatever you want. I’ve spent the past quarter-century in the trenches of pastoral ministry comforting grieving parishioners, counseling struggling Christians, equipping lay people, pastors, and professional Christian counselors for “the personal ministry of the Word.”

Brian’s “ten questions” deserve a “pastoral ministry response.” Game on.

A Few Ground Rules

Any good tennis match must have a few ground rules (even in post-modern tennis—sorry, I couldn’t resist!). Any healthy conversation ought to include some communication skills and relational competencies. I’ll “basically” let Brian set those ground rules.

Ground Rule # 1: Q and R (Sorta’)

Brian asks not for Q/A, but for Q/R. Q/A, of course, equals Question and Answer. Brian says he thinks most questions aren’t suited for a simple answer (I’m not sure any questions are suited for a simple answer…). So he prefers Q/R: Question and Response—stimulating, open-ended, conversations starters.

So here’s my intention:

To engage Brian in stimulating Q/R about how his ten questions relate to the personal ministry of the Word (biblical counseling, spiritual formation, pastoral care, small groups, personal discipleship, soul care, spiritual direction, spiritual friendship, one another ministry, etc.).

Now, that said, I will try to do not just what Brian said, but what Brian did. As much as Brian likes to focus on “responses,” his book is filled with his answers to his ten questions. That’s not a critique. It’s an observation. And…it set’s the ground rules fairly so that we’re both playing by the same norms. Yes, I will give my answers. And I’ll give them in the form I often tell my students, “This is my current best attempt to respond to this question.” So…please be charitable when you read not only “responses” from me, but also “answers.” I want to be like Brian.

Ground Rule # 2: “Charitable” (Faithful Are the Wounds of a Friend)

Brian repeatedly asks that people who respond to him do so charitably. I want to do that. In fact, I hope I do it more consistently than it felt like, to me, Brian did it.

I don’t have the time or space in this first post to share the many examples of Brian’s less-than-charitable interactions throughout the book, but I will share a few samplers…to set the ground rules. Brian starts the book by illustrating his innocent speaking engagement being bothered by four people placing leaflets on car windshields talking about Brian as a “known heretic” (p. 1). He responds by asking the rhetorical question, “How did a mild-manner guy like me get into so much trouble” (p. 2)?

Now, now. Is that any way to start a friendly conversation? So…those who disagree or have different responses from Brian are illustrative of heresy hunters. Brian and those with views like him are innocent mild-manner guys. I know, it’s subtle (well, kind of). I know, Brian didn’t say everyone who disagrees is a “heresy hunter.” He didn’t say everyone who agrees with him is a good guy. But… come on… is that really an open-ended invitation to a charitable conversation?

But that’s topped by the page where Brian introduces the first five questions. The illustration now changes from parking lot heresy hunters to evil guards at a concentration camp (p. 31).

And who are these concentration camp guards? They are pastors (who disagree with Brian).

For Brian, the reason others are not on his quest is because they’ve been locked in a closet, cell, or concentration camp by guards (pastors) motivated by a desire to keep people under their control by making them fearful of the real world. These guards (pastors) are like Satan masquerading as an angel of light. “We see our guards not as guards at all, but as pleasant custodians in clerical robes or casual suits. They’ve been to graduate school (seminary) where many of them mastered the techniques of friendly manipulation…” (p. 31, parenthesis added).

Brian, come clean. That’s not a shout out, is it? That’s a bit of an introductory dig. We’ve been dissed, right? Is this really how we want to invite charitable conversation?

So…now…if I “respond” to Brian with any difference of opinion, that puts me in the camp (remember, he said “many of them” not a few) of those manipulative pastors who seek to control their congregations through fear (techniques learned in “graduate school”—where do pastors go for graduate school?—seminary). So I’m in a double-bind because I’ve pastored three churches and I now equip pastors at a seminary.

The examples could go on and on. These are simply two of Brian’s somewhat subtle illustrative introductions. Read the book and you’ll stumble upon a batch of specific less-than-charitable statements about those who disagree with Brian.

They don’t feel like a “gentle lob” in tennis. They come across like the gauntlet being laid down in a jousting match, like an En Garde” in fencing, like a “glove slap” in a duel, or like a Klingon Bat’leth line-up (you have to be a Star Trek fan).

I’m going to try to follow Brian’s ground rules of charitable conversation, but hopefully more as a friendly tennis match than as, “I challenge you to a duel!” Perhaps the imagery from Proverbs fits best, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Some of Brian’s words are biting, wounding, sarcastic, in-your-face (yep, mild-mannered Brian). I’ll try to take them as faithful wounds from a friend (believing the best about Brian’s intentions). So…when I’m a tad playful, or sarcastic, or telling-it-like-it-is, please allow me the benefit of the doubt, also.

The Rest of the Story

In “Part 2,” I’ll further explain my focus—what I’m calling “the personal ministry of the Word.” In relationship to Brian’s ten questions, I’ll introduce two themes—the sufficiency of Scripture and progressive sanctification—as they relate to “biblical counseling” and “spiritual formation.”

Join the Conversation

What implications do you see for “the personal ministry of the Word” from Brian’s ten questions in A New Kind of Christianity?

Tags: A New Kind of Christianity, Biblical Counseling, Brian McLaren, Christianity, McLaren, Spiritual Formation

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Crying Out to God: I Surrender All

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here. To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Crying Out to God: I Surrender All.

Bargaining/Works: A Tit-for-Tat God

The typical third stage of the grief journey moves from denial, to anger, and then to bargaining and works. The dying people that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross interviewed entered into spoken and unspoken bargains with God. They believed that God would reward them for their good behavior and grant them special favors.

They reasoned that, “If I’m good, then God will be good to me.” Their unstated theology said, “Good things happen to good people.” So, of course, they told themselves, “God will stop the bad things that are happening to me if He sees what a good person I am and what good I can do.”

Job’s miserable counselors followed the identical mindset. Their God was a tit-for-tat God. “If you do bad, then God does bad back to you. If you do good, then God does good to you.”

We can summarize their entire counsel to Job as, “Behave, be good, do right, be righteous, and God will treat you right.” This is why they wrongly assumed and cruelly asserted that Job’s suffering was all a direct result of Job’s sinning.

Frank Lake has harsh words for such harsh counselors then and now. Speaking of innocent sufferers and one-dimensional counselors, Lake explains:

“These passive evils, which are not of the soul’s own making, are not accessible to a pastoral care which can talk only in terms of the forgiveness of sins. Such sufferers are usually not insensitive to their status as sinners. They have sought God’s forgiveness. But like Job, they complain of the comforters whose one-track minds have considered only the seriousness of sin, and not the gravity of grinding affliction.”

Such false counsel leads to bargaining that knows nothing of grace. It is all works, self-effort, and self-sufficiency. Bargaining attempts to control and manipulate God. That’s why it’s so vital to move from bargaining and works to cry—crying out to God for help.

Crying Out to God: Open Palms and Pleading Eyes

Crying out to God is a faith-based plea for mobilization in which I humbly ask God for help based upon my admission that I can’t survive without Him. Crying is reaching up with open palms and pleading eyes in the midst of darkness and doubt.

Psalm 56:8 teaches that we pray our tears and God collects them in His bottle. Psalm 72:12 assures us, “For he will deliver the needy who cry out” (KJV—when he crieth).

Psalm 34 reminds us, “The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:17-18).

Crying out to God is a testimony that God is responsive, while all false gods and idols are non-responsive (1 Samuel 12:20-24). When we cry out, we entreat God to help because expressed neediness compels God’s very character to act. God acts on voiced pain. He is not a deaf and dumb idol.

Crying empties us so there is more room in us for God. David wept until he had no strength left, but then he found strength in the LORD (1 Samuel 30:6). His cry, his confession of neediness, summoned God into action—supportive action.

Suffering is God’s primary way of uprooting our self-reliance and complacency. He uses suffering to gain our attention. Suffering is a slap in the face, the shock of icy water, a bloodied nose; meant to snatch our attention. Crying out to God is our admission that God has our attention, that God has us.

Join the Conversation

Why do some counselors and spiritual friends act like Job’s counselors: with one-track minds considering only the seriousness of sin, but not the gravity of grinding affliction?

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving, Suffering

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here.

To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss.

Facing Destructive Anger

Anger is the typical “second stage” in the world’s grieving journey. After denial ends, the truth sinks in. Something bad, horrific has occurred. We’ve lost something or someone dear to us.

Our loss frustrates our desires and blocks our goals. It ticks us off. We’re mad. We want to lash out. At life. At the world. At . . . God.

This is where grief gets very confusing for the committed Christian. We love God; we know He loves us. We know God is good; we know life has now turned bad. So we want to know, sometimes we want to scream it, “How could a good God allow such evil and suffering!?”

God Invites Lament

But dare we ask? Do we dare verbalize our complaint, our lament to God?

The Scriptures are clear—God invites lament, complaint. The Bible repeatedly illustrates believers responding to God’s invitation with honest words that would make many a modern Christian shudder.

I know what you’re thinking. “Didn’t God judge the Israelites for complaining?”

There are different words and a distinct context between the sinful complaint of the Israelites in Numbers and the godly complaint/lament of Job, the Psalmists, Jeremiah, and many others. Biblical complaint complains to God about the fallen world. Ungodly complaint complains about God and accuses Him of lacking goodness, holiness, and wisdom.

We must remember that Satan is the master masquerader (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). His counterfeit for biblical complaint is unhealthy, destructive anger. Satan wants us to substitute cursing for complaint.

Job’s wife fell into Satan’s snare when she urged Job to “Curse God and die!” She encouraged him to give up on God, on himself, and on life.

Cursing God demeans God. It sees Him as a lightweight, as an arid desert and a land of great darkness (Jeremiah 2:5, 19, 29, 31). Cursing separates. Complaint connects. Complaint draws us toward God; hatred and anger push us away from God.

Biblical Complaint: Telling God the Truth

What then is complaint? In candor we’re honest with ourselves; in complaint we’re honest to God. Complaint is vulnerable frankness about life to God in which I express my pain and confusion over how a good God allows evil and suffering.

We needlessly react against the word “complaint.” “Christians can’t complain!” we insist. Yet numerically, there are more Psalms of complaint and lament than Psalms of praise and thanksgiving.

Complaints are faith-based acts of persistent trust. They are one of the many moods of faith. Psalm 91’s exuberant trust is one faith mood while Psalm 88’s dark despair is another faith mood. A mood of faith trusts God enough to bring everything about us to Him. In complaint we hide nothing from God because we trust His good heart and because we know He knows our hearts.

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So what do you think. Can and should Christians “complain” and “lament” to God?

Tags: Complaint, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving, Lament

The Best of the Best Around the Net

One of my passions is bridge-building, connecting, and highlighting other ministries and ministry resources—so that the Body of Christ is built up and Christ is magnified (Ephesians 4:15-16). My weekly post, The Best of the Best Around the Net, links you to blog posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. Check out the following links you can trust.

Power for Preachers

My friend, Mike Pohlman, over at The Gospel Coalition, asks, “Where does the preacher’s power reside?” His post shows how and why preacher and listener can go confidently into church. Check out Power for Preachers.

A Reformation of Worship

Prolific author and blogger, R. C. Sproul, explains in Seeking a Reformation of Worship that, “The sacraments are not naked symbols. They must be clothed with the Word. Word and sacrament must go together.”

Two Ships, Two Sinkings, and Two Worldviews

Al Mohler shares a fascinating story, really two stories, with a deeply relevant moral. What explains the difference in how men responded to the sinking of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania? In Women and Children First, Mohler contrasts Scripture/revelation with science/research and shows where we find our true answers in life.

The Masculine Mandate

Tim Challies, who blogs as often and as effectively as any Christian blogger, is also Evangelical Christianity’s preeminent book reviewer. In this post he reviews the new book The Masculine Mandate. Here’s his summary, which hopefully entices you to read the full blog and in turn the full book. “Well-written and presenting tough truths within such a simple grid of work and keep, this book is a very useful call for men to live out their mandate before God.”

Join the Conversation

Of the Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why? 

Tags: Challies, Mohler, Sproul, The Best of the Best, The Gospel Coalition

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

Candor: Telling Yourself the Truth

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here.

To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: Candor: Telling Yourself the Truth.

Moving from Denial to Candor

The world has its way of grieving. But, when our fallen world falls on us, when suffering crushes us, we need much more than research. We need revelation—we need God’s inspired truth about how to grieve as those who have hope.

God’s Word offers us profound practical wisdom for moving from denial to candor. What exactly is biblical candor? Candor is courageous truth telling to myself about life in which I come face-to-face with the reality of my external and internal suffering. In candor, I admit what is happening to me and I feel what is going on inside me.

Biblical Candor Samplers: Fearlessly Facing the Facts

Does God really allow and even invite His children to be brutally honest about life? David practices candor in Psalm 42:3-5.

My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Notice that David is honest about his external suffering. He describes his losses—the loss of fellowship, leadership, and worship. He also is candid about his internal suffering. He depicts his crosses—accurately labeling his soul as downcast and disturbed within him.

Job consistently models candor throughout his response to his losses.

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil (Job 3:25-26).

Again we witness brutal frankness both about external losses and internal crosses.

We could profitably examine the accounts of other biblical characters who practiced candor—Jeremiah, Solomon, Asaph (Psalm 73), Heman (Psalm 88), Jesus, Paul, and so many more. They all convey the same inspired message: it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve.

No Grieving;No Healing. Know Grieving; Know Healing

The Apostle Paul does not tell us not to grieve; he tells us not to grieve without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). He chooses a Greek word meaning to feel sorrow, distress, and grief, and to experience pain, heaviness, and inner affliction.

Paul is teaching that grief is the grace of recovery because mourning slows us down to face life. No grieving; no healing. Know grieving; know healing.

The only person who can truly dare to grieve, bear to grieve, is the person with a future hope that things will eventually be better. When we trust God’s good heart, then we trust Him no matter what. We need not pretend. We can face and embrace the mysteries of life.

On the Road to Hope

Candor or denial. The choice is a turning point. It is a line drawn in the sand of life, a hurdle to confront.

Faith crosses the line. Trust leaps the hurdle. We face reality and embrace truth, sad as it is. If facing suffering is wrestling face-to-face with God, then candor is our decision to step on the mat. Will you?

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How can people begin to move from denial to candor?

Tags: Candor, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving, Healing

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting

A Portrait of Your Healing Journey

Countdown to God’s Healing: I’m excited to announce that BMH Books will release my fifth book soon (in April 2010). To read a sample section of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting click here.

To pre-order your autographed copy at 30% off, visit here.

As we countdown to the release, I’ll be sharing periodic excerpts, such as today’s post: A Portrait of Your Healing Journey.

The Way of the World: Is This All There Is?

How do we move from suffering to creative suffering? How do we suffer face-to-face with God rather than turning our backs on God during suffering? How do we find hope when we’re hurting?

We have two basic options. We can turn to the world’s way. Or we can follow the way of God’s Word.

Students of human grief have developed various models that track typical grief responses. Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying, popularized a five-stage model of grieving based upon her research into how terminally ill persons respond to the news of their terminal illness. Her five stages have since been used worldwide to describe all grief responses. While her research describes the typical response, they can’t begin to capture or address whether this is God’s designed response or desired plan for our healing journey.

The Way of the Word: All We Need for Life and Godliness

Believing in the sufficiency of Scripture, we will focus on a revelation-based model. The biblical approach to grieving and growing identifies eight scriptural “stages” in our responses to life’s losses. God’s way equips us to move through hurt to hope in Christ—from grieving to growing.

The first four stages involve what we call sustaining in suffering, which we will explore in chapters two through five. The second four stages relate to healing in suffering, which we will explore in chapters six through nine.

Please always remember that these “stages” are a relational process, not sequential steps. Grieving and growing is not a neat, nice package. It isn’t a tidy procedure. Grieving and growing is messy because life is messy. Moving through hurt to hope is a two-steps-forward, one-step-backwards endeavor. We don’t “conquer a stage” and never return to it.

Rather than picturing a linear, step-by-step route, imagine a three dimensional maze with many possible paths, frequent detours, backtracking, and even the ability to reside in more than one “stage” at the same time. However, positive movement is possible. In fact, it is promised. You can find God’s healing for your losses. You can find hope in your hurt.

Join the Journey

Whatever your grieving experience has been like up to this point, don’t quit. Don’t give up. Join the journey.

Experience the biblical reality that it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve. Learn how to move from denial to personal honesty (candor), from anger to honesty with God (complaint), from bargaining to asking God for help (crying out), and from depression to receiving God’s help (comfort).

Stay on the path. Experience the biblical reality that it’s possible to hope and supernatural to grow. Learn how to move from regrouping to trusting with faith (waiting on God), from deadening to groaning with hope (wailing to God), from despair to perceiving with grace (weaving in God’s truth), and from digging cisterns to engaging with love (worshipping God and ministering to others).

God truly does provide you with everything you need for life and godliness. Through the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the people of God, you have all you need for your healing journey.

Our Healing Journey

Here’s an overview portrait of the healing journey we’ll take together. When life’s losses invade your world, learn how to face suffering face-to-face with God. Learn how to journey:

 From Denial to Candor: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

 From Anger to Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss

 From Bargaining to Crying Out to God: I Surrender All

 From Depression to Comfort: God Comes

 From Regrouping to Waiting: When God Says “Not Yet”

 From Deadening to Wailing: Pregnant with Hope

 From Despairing to Weaving: Spiritual Mathematics

 From Digging Cisterns to Worshipping: Finding God

Join the Conversation

How have you journeyed with God from suffering to healing hope?

Tags: Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving