Faithful Church Planting as Plodding (Scott Slayton)

January 28, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Chuch planting has been in vogue as of late, and at times seems to get sensationalized. But faithful church planting — the type that isn’t aimed at just gathering a crowd by any means possible, or “creating” a church by merely transplanting already-believers from already-heathy-churches, but is about seeing souls saved and joined to churches as healthy members — is probably better described as plodding.

And it’s worth it. Mainstream culture — heck, mainstream Christianity — won’t get it. It flies in the face of American values of consumerism and pragmatism, a value-system that the American church seems to have embodied in what is probably best described as syncretism. But, luckily, faithfulness to Christ isn’t measured by other people’s perception of how odd, crazy, or unconventional your approach may seem.

[F]or us to plant the kinds of churches we need to plant the men who feel called to planting must change their expectations and their definition of ‘success.’ … When numerical success becomes the primary benchmark for evaluating the success of a church, a man will sacrifice his principles and build his ministry on all the wrong things to achieve his goal. Churches built on hype, great music, and a charismatic personality may reach some people who do not know Jesus, but it will mainly pull Christians from other churches. We don’t need more churches characterized by this mentality; we need thousands less.

… The task of planting churches who are faithful to share the Gospel, make disciples, and plant more church calls for an army of men who are content with no one knowing their names except the people in their community and those whom they shepherd. … We need the man willing to work in obscurity because the real task of church planting is not easy or glamorous. At the same time the task is worth every ounce of effort. – Scott Slayton

Read the entire article here — Why We Need Anonymous, Plodding Church Planters.

Christian, Stop Sharing Fake News (Recommended Articles)

January 23, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Fake News

Unintentionally timely. This week my sermon happened to be on truthfulness, honesty, and integrity.

We live in a society and culture in which truthfulness is severely under attack and corroding quickly.

We can look at our political scene — where this word ‘post-truth’ largely originates — where we have this odd paradox between the rise of fact-checkers and yet the reality that very little seem to care about those facts. We live in our social media echo chambers and simply choose to believe whatever we find convenient. We use to say, ‘You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.’ Now it seems like everyone can have their own facts too. ‘Truth’ is flexible and agenda driven.

~ Sermon (An Integrity that Needs No Oaths, James 5:12), South City Church

As Christians, we must be those who resist such things, not succumb to them. #FakeNews #AlternativeFacts

What’s Wrong with Swearing Oaths? (Matthew 5:33-37; James 5:12)

January 22, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Why is swearing a roadblock to honesty? What is the problem with swearing oaths (Mt 5:33-37; Js 5:12)?

Oaths divide speech into two camps — honest speech, and less honest speech.

It is not that the oath is in itself wrong, but that it divides speech into two levels. Some statements are sworn to and thus must be true, while others are just normal speech and may not be. … Oaths are dangerous, for they make some speech more honest than other speech. (Peter Davids)

As such, to use an oath (or to swear) is to admit that you are someone who is normally dishonest, someone who can’t be trusted. It is an admission that, outside of using oaths, you are a less than trustworthy person, that your commitment to truth is suspect and needs to be buttressed and strengthened. Oaths are only needed because your speech is unreliable.

Swearing (i.e., oath-taking) is really a pathetic confession of our own dishonesty. Why do we find it necessary to introduce our promises by some tremendous formula? … The only reason is that we know our simple word is not likely to be trusted. (John Stott)

Oaths seems to imply that some speech is more lax and less serious with regards to honesty. The use of oaths implicitly downgrades the expectations for honesty elsewhere. But we are a people who believe that all speech is binding — we are held accountable for the integrity all of our speech, not just sworn speech.

Thus, as people who are called to absolute honesty, swearing and oaths should have no place among Christians. Our commitment to truth should be so consistent and dependable that there is no need for us to buttress our speech with swearing or taking oaths. Our plain speech is good enough. It’s trustworthy as it is.

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday: Reflections

January 22, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Our society worships the gods of sex, convenience, and freedom and makes human sacrifices on the altars of abortion. I know it’s controversial. But we need to call it what it is — murder. And deep down, I’m convinced we know exactly what we’re doing.

At the same time, none of this can be used to ignore for one moment the very real, tough, and distressing situations that many expectant mothers face — the sort of circumstances that prompt so many mothers to consider abortions in the first place. As much as we care for the life the baby, we should care about the welfare of the mother. And we should extend grace to those who have had abortions.

Finally, as evangelicals, we must work towards a more wholistic and consistent ethic of life. “Sanctity of life” should mean all life, certainly pre-born babies’ lives, but not *just* pre-born babies’ lives. Until we do so, our fervent cries on behalf of life will ring hollow with the reverberations of hypocrisy.

Ethics. Compassion. Consistency. #SOHLS