Yesterday, a couple of our young adults and I took our youth group on our annual excursion to CedarPoint Amusement Park. If you’ve ever been to an amusement park, you can guess fairly accurately what consumed our day. By early evening, most of the group had pretty much tired of the rides; all but one. Since our young adults were there with the kids, I decided to take a brief hiatus from the group. (In two hours, I had plenty of time to ride 5 more rollercoasters and one other ride; I thought that’s why amusement parks existed.)

Having this unusual time alone in such a setting, I had more opportunity to think about what I was doing as I raced around the park. Waiting lines provide a person with time to think if he or she can block out the music being blasted over the speakers at a nearly unbearable volume of decibels. My contemplation led me to conclude that trips to amusement parks have very little redeeming value, even the best parks like CedarPoint.

I love my annual trip to the park. (As we unloaded the vans in the parking lot, one of the young adults suggested that I seemed more excited to get inside and more agitated at arriving 15 minutes late than did the teens. Ouch!)  But I must admit that the whole amusement park experience is simply worldly. Except for an occasional t-shirt with a Christian message (like the “Love Let’s Live” t-shirt worn by one courageous girl), there is almost no expression of the supremacy of God or the majesty of Christ anywhere. Of course, the evidence is everywhere–every thrill ride in the park can do what it does because of the laws of creation that our infinitely wise God determined; every emotion from fear to relief to joy that brings people to the park was designed by our Maker who also feels those emotions. Yet, his name, his honor, his glory are strangely absent from the whole affair.

If there was any thing of redeeming value in our whole excursion, it probably centered around two things. First, my solo wandering excluded, the overall experience was a shared one. When 19 people are pushed 310 foot into the air and dropped at an 80 degree angle so that you speed to the ground at 93 miles per hour together, it’s more than just a 3 minute rollercoaster ride. It creates conversations and shared emotions and laughter that draw people together and build bonds. When teenagers can laugh at their pastor for wearing a belt pouch that looks “so ’90’s” and the pastor can laugh at his generation’s styles and his own weaknesses (not sinful tendencies) with his teens, possibilities to speak God’s truth into their lives open up. The pastor is reminded that the differences between the teens in his church and himself are largely external, and the teens may begin to open up their eyes to the fact that the pastor’s sermons are not merely attempts to preserve tradition.

Secondly, a day at the amusement park can be a healthy reminder about the emptiness of worldly thrills and the deceitfulness of worldly happiness. Nothing illustrates the former better than our adventure at the Top Thrill Dragster. Forty-five minutes of mostly horrible anticipation, one more check of my pulse (to make sure it hadn’t already reached dangerous levels), and we were strapped into what resembles an F-15 ejection seat aboard an 18-passenger train weighing more than 7 tons with cargo. Moments later, we were waiting helplessly at the starting line. Yellow, yellow, yellow, GREEN! We were catapulted to a speed of 120 mph in less than four seconds, thrust 420 feet into the air at a 90 degree angle, and then dropped 400 feet straight down before leveling out and stopping. No doubt about it, it really was a thrill like no other; great, breath-taking fun. But here’s the catch: A mere 17 seconds after our flight began, we were deboarding wishing for more, wishing for a thrill that lasted longer, that went deeper. Our conversation would lengthen the joy, but the fact would remain: worldly thrills are ultimately brief, unsatisfying, and empty. Granted some worldly pleasures may last a lifetime, but compared to eternity a lifetime hardly seems like 17 seconds.

Regarding the deceitfulness of worldly happiness, a little thoughtful observation at the amusement park makes this perfectly clear. Have you ever noticed that children cry at amusement parks–even while they’re holding their snow cones and cotton candy? Have you ever overheard the tired, exasperated scolding of their parents? Ever noticed an argument between a husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend? Have you ever seen a paramedic giving first aid, or someone frantic because they lost their wallet or purse? It all happens right there in recreational paradise. The park provides so many different kinds of thrills, games, entertainment, and diversions a person could want. Every kind of food is offered anywhere you look. All kinds of helpful accessories are made available to make your day in paradise a pure joy. And yet, it never is pure joy. The reality and presence and effects of sin follow us to the amusement park. No diversion is powerful enough to delight us with pure and lasting joy as long as sin abides. Worldly happiness–happiness that is gained through what this world can offer–is deceitful at best, forever eluding those who seek it.

If a trip to the amusement park can remind us that only a relationship with God through His Son Jesus will bring the thrill and joy that our heart demands, then maybe a trip to the amusement park can be a very good thing. If you’re seeking your joys in the world, maybe you should head to an amusement park tomorrow; perhaps it will remind you that your 17 seconds are nearly past.

I happened to find this post on Religion vs. The Gospel which is adapted from Tim Keller’s work. It provides some helpful tests for us to use to examine whether we are living out of the gospel or out of man-made religion.

In my previous entry, I noted how much of today’s journalism is not really journalism. “News stories” are often used by today’s writers and media outlets to advance their particular worldview, political candidate, or personal opinions. The facts of the stories themselves are often incidental while the comment on how the writer thinks things should be are the real focus. This is not always the case, of course, and there are some reliable news sources that are true to the aims and means of good journalism.

As I was writing, I could hear an obvious objection being raised by some skeptics: “Isn’t that what preachers do? Aren’t preachers simply trying to make people believe what the preachers want them to believe?” Sadly, this is true of some preachers—far too many preachers, I’m afraid. But this is not a true criticism of genuine biblical preaching. A brief look at some parallels between preaching and journalism can help us understand when preaching isn’t preaching.

One task. A good journalist has one task: to present historical facts to his or her readers so that they are able to better understand and relate to the world in which they live. In a news story, a writer seeks to tell the readers what is happening in the world and to identify the impact of that event. Their subject matter may be an event that happened yesterday, is happening at this very moment, or will happen tomorrow. They may be writing about the government or fashion or sports or zoology or any number of things. Nevertheless, the journalist’s task is to declare what is going on in the world. When reporters fail to do this, they fail to fulfill their responsibility.

A preacher’s task is to make God known. He, too, is primarily concerned with making known the facts of reality so that his hearers will know how to live in the world. God is the ultimate reality; all of reality flows out of the person of God. Therefore, we must all understand who this supreme Being is and how we are to relate to Him. God as revealed in the Scriptures through His Son must be the subject matter of every sermon. Like the journalist, the preacher may also deal with events from the past, present, or future. He will deal with a wide variety of subject—everything from education and vocation to marriage and sex. In all of these things, is task is to make God known. If a preacher simply gives guidelines for happy living or presents theological truths or shares what he thinks about something, he fails at his task. He’s simply commenting on reality. Say what he may, he isn’t preaching.

Just the facts, sir. A good journalist deals with facts. He or she makes a diligent search for facts from the first and best (primary) sources. Then he or she will examine them and carefully discern the meaning of the facts. Finally, the journalist will thoughtfully organize and present the facts in way that is clear and understandable for his or her readers. This process largely describes the work of a preacher.

Genuine biblical preaching deals with facts—objective, verifiable truth. These facts—this truth—is revealed in Scripture. God is ultimate truth and He has plainly revealed Himself in the Scriptures. The preacher’s task then is to make a diligent search of the Scriptures to see what God has revealed. He must carefully observe the words of Scripture until he knows clearly what God has said. Then the preacher will assiduously examine the meaning of the Scriptures, carefully comparing his text to other texts within the Bible until he is able to thoroughly understand its meaning. Finally, he will labor to organize his findings into a sermon that is correct and clear. In doing so, the preacher will help the congregation to see that the facts he presents come from the Scriptures before them so that they know the words they hear are true.

What about persuasion?  Here is where I would argue that good preaching parts from good journalism. While the journalist is primarily concerned with reporting the world, a preacher is concerned with people coming to the God we proclaim. I don’t have time to work this out, but I think this is largely because of our subject matter. Journalists deal with objective historical facts (even when those facts are biographical), whereas preachers speak of a living Person who may be personally known by the hearer as a result of listening to the preacher. (This is both mind-boggling and glorious to me.) Thus, the preacher is not primarily reporting about God; he seeks to make God known. He is primarily man to God. Therefore, he must be persuasive. Unlike, the however,

Genuine biblical preaching seeks to persuade men to return to God’s position, not the preacher’s. This is where he differs from the poor journalist, who seeks to persuade others to his or her own position. The preacher is not mainly concerned that others agree with him; he is concerned that his congregation agrees with God. This is why he must deal rightly and carefully with the Scriptures. Once the preacher knows what the Scriptures say, and once those Scriptures have brought the preacher to know God more deeply and personally and powerfully, he is compelled to persuade others to hear and believe God. This was the case for Paul. We catch Paul’s urgency to persuade men in his preaching when he writes to the Corinthian church

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Thus, unlike a reporter, a true preacher must be persuasive. The preacher wants the people to feel the weight of God’s truth and the certainty of eternity; he yearns for them to know the horrors of sin and the wonders of grace; he longs for them to behold the beauty of Christ and see the glory of God. And so, week after week, he seeks to make God know by searching the Scriptures and persuasively preaching the glories of Christ, so that as he lifts up Christ, Christ may draw all men to Himself. (See John 12:32.) 

And if the preacher aims at anything less, if he simply seeks to persuade the people to be a certain kind of person or live a certain way or imitate a certain kind of behavior or have a particular theological position, then he isn’t preaching.

I’m humbled to think that this is my calling. Please pray for me that I will be a faithful preacher who cares little about drawing a crowd or advancing my own agenda, and who, by the grace and power of God, makes God known.

If it’s brief, it must not be mine. I tried to keep the next post short, but somehow… 

Any way, I really appreciated this explanation of preaching on the Desiring God blog entry “What I Mean by Preaching.” No other living person has shaped my understanding of preaching more than John Piper. Nor does any other person challenge me and make me want to be a better preacher.

Maybe that’s why I identify with him when he says:

If you’re used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won’t find that from what I’ve just described.

• I preach twice that long;
• I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
• and I am not relaxed.

I hope that I can follow–not imitate–his example. Please take a few minutes to listen.

Keeping up with the world is a necessity for anyone who wants to make the glories of Christ known. Of course, there are different ways to do that. I have found it helpful to read carefully read through a couple of news magazines each week. Quite some time ago, I chose two magazines that approach the world and its events from very different perspectives and with very different values–World and U.S.News & World Report.

For the last twelve years or so, I subscribed to U.S.News. Each week I would digest the issue trying to glean news from “articles” interspersed with commentary aimed at advancing an evolutionary secular humanism, a revisionist view of history, and a liberal, socialistic political agenda. Last year, the magazine cut back from a weekly to a bi-weekly format largely because of a changing cost structure. Due to declining subscriptions, this year they evolved into a monthly magazine aimed at lifestyle rather than detailed news. To explain the decline, the publishers blamed the changes on the readers and their changing habits rather than making a critical examination of their magazine’s editorial approach to “journalism”.

Without much product loyalty, I quickly switched to another news weekly which is really not another. In late March, my first issue of Time arrived and much to my lack of surprise, its cover story was an opinion piece. Sigh. What has happened to the news? What happens when people read without discernment and are unaware that the “news” they are reading is really the writer’s opinions? What happens when the “news” is really spun and manufactured in order to advance a worldview or agenda?

Two recent stories from two different “news” magazines illustrate my concern. In both columns the writers celebrate the demise of institutions far too soon, before the ‘facts’ can substantiate their joyous claims. Last week’s cover of Time gleefully concluded that the Republican party is now an endangered species. The accompanying article is filled with derogatory commentary to support the magazine’s hopeful prediction of the death of the GOP, but contains very little objective content. In this case, even a most undiscerning reader can probably tell that the writer really, really wants the Republican Party to go away. To be fair, I am sure that some columnists said essentially the same thing about the Democrats after November, 2004, which only further illustrates the folly of letting opinion guide the reporting of facts. Though I have nothing invested in the Republican Party, I take issue with “journalism” that seeks to manipulate public opinion by stating their opinions and desires as if they are historical and factual.

On an opposite front, the April 13 issue of Newsweek triumphantly reported that we have come to “The End of Christian America“. In the story, Jon Meachem gives his analysis of the data in the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) and data from a Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Here again, the writer’s elation is thinly veiled as he pronounces the end of evangelical Christianity’s influence on America. In making his case, he takes data from the ARIS which show a decline in the number of “self-identified Christians” and a rise in the number of “religiously unidentified” and places them alongside the political poll conducted by Newsweek to argue that the decline in evangelical Christianity means that they are no longer an influence on the American political system. Meachem implies that America has now been liberated from a evangelical influence and presents a belittling caricature of evangelical Christians in the process. Shortly after publication, Meachem later wrote a shorter online column stating that he was not attacking Christianity, but simply rejoicing that Christianity was finding its rightful place in the closet–my paraphrase, of course.

Evangelicals can’t be too sensitive to the liberal media’s disparaging attitudes and actions; we should expect them. In fact, we should rejoice in them (Matthew 5:11-12). Indeed, America does stand for liberty and freedom so that her people are able to express their opinions, as Meachem did in his story and as I am doing here. Nevertheless, journalists and the news media should be expected to report the facts of current events openly and objectively. When journalists shape their stories and the “facts” according to their own agendas and desired outcomes, they are no longer journalists, but commentators seeking to make people believe what they want them to believe.*

While I believe this needs to change, I don’t believe that it will, at least not soon. Therefore, we must be careful; we must be discerning. We don’t have to be afraid of the media, and we must read and keep up with our world. We just have to be wise and understanding. From whatever source we get our news,we must learn to separate the factual accounts within the story from the author’s commentary and flawed conclusions. For my part, I will continue to read Time and World each week.  With both I will be a careful reader so that I may learn from them more about the world and cultures of our day so that, by the grace of God, I may be better prepared to give a defense for the hope that is within me.

*Blogs don’t have footnotes?! At this point, I’m sure that Mr. Meachem might ask, “How are preachers any different?” That’s a good question. Next time, we’ll address “When Preaching Isn’t Preaching”.

I know it’s kind of late to chime in with my thoughts about Susan Boyle’s success, but I’ve been studying the book of Revelation this week to prepare for Sunday’s sermon and I find a compelling parallel that I think is worth sharing. You can be the judge I suppose.

If you have not watched the full-length (7 minutes) YouTube posting of Susan Boyle’s performance, you really should. (Imagine that, me encouraging you to watch something off of television.) For those of you who haven’t heard of Susan Boyle, she is a 47 year-old woman from a village in Scotland who was pursuing her dream of being a professional singer. Obviously, the main problem is that she doesn’t look the part. Nevertheless, she won an opportunity to appear on Britains Got Talent, the UK’s version of American Idol (which I’ve not yet seen).

Prior to her performance, the show’s judges were not just skeptical, they were rude. As one of the judges admitted to Boyle, “{Before your performance} everyone was laughing at you.” Another judge (Amanda) stated afterward, “I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think that we were being very cynical.”

As the music began to play and Susan Boyle began to sing, it was only a moment before the judges and the audience discovered the folly of judging a book by its cover, the idiocy of concluding what “is” based on superficial evidences, the sheer madness of determining reality just because we think so. Amanda concluded, “That was the biggest wake up call ever.”

Not quite. The “biggest wake-up call ever” is still to come. On that day, when the seven seals are broken and the seven trumpets sound, the One who is called Faithful and True whose name is King of kings and Lord of lords will ride forth (Revelation 19:11-16). On that day, the surprised cynics will number in the billions. On that day, the jaws of those who laughed at this humble, unimpressive preacher will drop, and their knees will give way, and they will reel in amazement and fear. Some will call on the mountains to fall on them so that they do not have to see his face. What a dreadful awakening that will be.

May the Lord grant us grace that we may labor with all that God has given us to make Him known today. Shall we even attempt to make him known, we will meet the skeptics. They will laugh at us. Most often, perhaps, they will not be impressed. They will not applaud. They will not concede their folly. Yet, those whose eyes are opened today will escape the greatest wake-up call ever. And, with all who believe, they will enjoy the glory of the surprising Savior for eternity.