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There is some stuff I just cannot comprehend. Try as I may to get it…it doesn’t make any logical or Scriptural sense. Here is a partial of things I do not understand.

1. Folks that show up to church only a few times a year but expect the pastor to drop everything to provide them with his undivided attention.
2. People that put nothing in the offering plate but still have the stones to expect that their opinions on the church should count.
3. Parents who ground their children from church or the youth group…the very things that could help them with their behavior, future and afterlife.
4. People that expect the pastor to tolerate their political views…but leave the church because of his.
5. The occasional volunteer that expects the church to throw a parade in their honor just because they finally did what the Bible commanded.
6. People that have basked in the grace of God…but fail to give grace to anyone else.
7. Pastors that leave one church for another…for better pay.
8. The need for church growth plans, programs, books, conference, seminars and resource kits…when we already have the Bible
9. Women that tolerate their husbands having multiple affairs…”for the sake of the kids”.
10. Pastors that would rather be political pundits or civil rights leaders…instead of just preaching the life-saving message of the Word of God.
11. People that have one spiritual standard for their pastor…and another for themselves.
12. Folks that think the word ‘disciple’ is a noun…and not a verb.
13. People that make comments about needing to go “deeper” in God’s Word…as if there is a Scripture in the Bible that isn’t deep.
14. Pastors that think accountability means never asking them the tough questions or taking the hard line when it comes to their failure to follow Scripture.
15. Men that think being the head of the household has something to do with the amount of money they are bringing in or the title they acquire at work.”
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Again – I don’t necessarily sign off on all of these. But they made me evaluate some things. What about you?

What resonated with your spirit? What did you disagree with? Did this make you think?

This year’s Pastor’s Conference had some fresh, new faces that represented the up-and-coming generation of SBC pastors. While I am a Southern Baptist – both in theology and in mission – I have had my concerns with the future of our denomination. But at this year’s annual meeting it became clear to me that God is not sleeping, and He is definitely raising up a new generation of passionate preachers, teachers, and missionaries.

David Platt, the senior pastor at The Church at Brook Hills is one of the leaders of this younger generation of gifted SBC pastors. He is only 30 years old, but he is wise beyond his years and commands attention – even from those twice his age. He was privileged to preach at one of the main sessions at the conference, and he left a profound impact on those in attendance.

What I appreciate about David Platt is his combination of confidence and humility in his preaching. He is convinced of the reliability of the text and not his ability as an orator. Sadly, the opposite is true with many pastors, but that is a different discussion for a different day. Back to the message he preached at the conference…

With the foundation of Hebrews 13:11, he began with a question that struck at the core of every pastor in the room: “Are we going to die in our religion or are we going to die in our devotion?” He then followed with a great explanation of the text and a fantastic charge on missions and evangelism.

I pray that, if you choose to watch this, you will ask that of yourselves as well.

UPDATE 07.10.09
I was requested by SBC Tapes to remove the video of David Platt’s PC sermon. Apparently, they have the copyright privileges to all of the videos from the SBC Annual Meeting. As soon as they have the copyrighted version finished and up on the web, I’ll add a link to the page. It’s worth watching.

A recent post by the guys at the Pyromaniacs blog really sparked some thought in my mind about this very issue. While our folks come and participate in worship, they would rather be listening to the pastors they read and podcast. The popular guys. I’m sure you can fill in the names. The Pyro guys make a few good points in the post. Some controversial, mostly helpful.

On the issue of our people really having other pastors:

Now, some professed Christians sin outright, by never physically attending an actual, in-person church. We’ve talked about that, and they aren’t our focus.

But others do attend a church — physically. They come in, they sit down. They sing, they may give financially. They may look at you, Pastor, as you preach.

But you know their heart belongs to another.

Their real pastor isn’t you. It’s Dave Hunt. Or it’s John Piper. Or it’s John MacArthur, or Ligon Duncan, or Mark Dever, or David Cloud, or Joel Osteen. Or it’s Charles Spurgeon, or D. M. Lloyd-Jones, or J. C. Ryle. Or Calvin, or Luther, or Bahnsen, or de Mar, or R. B. Thieme, or J. Vernon McGee.

And they’re such better pastors than you are! You know they are!

Another good tidbit from the post was concerning the lack of commitment we really have to paper pastors. They likened it to pornography. We are in control of the relationship. We have a commitment we can leave at any time.

He came to see that he had no actual relationship with these women whatever. If (he named a female celebrity) had sat down next to him in an airplane, she wouldn’t know him from Adam. Whatever may have happened in his sinful fantasies, the two of them had no relationship in the real world….

And they’re right, in a way. They can’t compete with these women. Because these women don’t exist in the real world! They may not even look like their pictures! Thanks to computer wizardry, the pictures we see may actually bear only the slightest resemblance to the actual women……

And these paper pastors maintain the perfect distance. If you don’t want to hear something, they don’t press it — or you can instantly shut them up, snap! They never ask you to do something uncomfortable and follow up on you. They never persistently probe an area of sin, in you, in person, eyeball to eyeball… nor will they. Church discipline will not be a threat with them. Ever.

Because they don’t know you from Adam.

This blog post really intrigued me. Why? Because during my time at Southern Seminary, many of the guys I went to school with seemed to elevate certain pastors above Christ, all in the name of Christ. They idolized these men. They worshiped these pastors.

As a college pastor, I’ve seen some of our own students struggle with this issue (as have other church members for that matter). Some have more of a desire to discuss a podcasted sermon from one of the “paper pastors” than to wrestle with and apply our own pastor’s sermon.

Let me be clear: I love a good read. I love great sermons and resources, and I love the ministry of many of these paper pastors. I have benefitted greatly from them. I even cite them on this blog as well as recommend them to others often! They ARE great men of God.

But perspective is also very helpful.

While I find these pastors resourceful and appreciate their ministry, I wish that people would spend more time uplifting and encouraging their ACTUAL pastors rather than fashioning golden calfs.

They might find that they appreciate their pastor more than ever before. Even if their pastors aren’t quite as perfect in their eyes as McManus, Begg, Sproul, Stanley, Piper, or Driscoll.

Maybe I just needed to have a heart-to-heart with some of my seminary friends or college students that have seemed to struggle with this. I guess it’s never too late:

So, because it’s awkward for your pastor to say it to you — and because I’ve no church who’d suspect I’m talking to them, at the moment — I’ll just tell you plain:

Brother, sister: John Piper isn’t your pastor. John MacArthur knows nothing about you. Dave Hunt never got on his knees and prayed for you. Lloyd-Jones won’t come to your house when you’re recovering from surgery, or one of your children shatters your heart, or your marriage is shaking and rocking and barely hanging on. Charles Spurgeon won’t weep with you as you weep.

Read the original post at the Pyromaniacs blog here.

HT: Sergio Mendoza

This message hit on gender roles, but more than that, it really targeted the core issues that most men struggle with. Mark takes the truth of the Bible and expounds on what a real man should look like.

I’m really glad he wasn’t shy to preach on this – especially in his context and the size of his church. It isn’t a popular perspective. This is a huge issue in the world today, and we’ve really messed up God’s design for masculinity and marriage. Take a few minutes and check it out…

Watch the message here.

Hat tip: The Resurgence.

I wrote out a complicated formula to explain what I am talking about:

ME+H=ATCTA
{Musical Excellence + Humility = A Tough Combination To Achieve}

I hope that didn’t go over anyone’s head . But, in reality, it does seem complicated and difficult for all of us – any instrument, any talent. One of the people I respect most in the world is a man named Bob Kauflin. He is the Worship Pastor/Director at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. He has been doing this stuff for a long time, and he has really influenced me as a worship leader. He has a blog dedicated to helping other worship leaders. It’s called Worship Matters and you can get to it here.

Bob wrestles with the same issue I discussed above. He seeks to answer the question that I made the title of this blog entry:

What does God want from us as worship leaders?

And how do we make sure we keep our pride in check while providing musical excellence for our Savior and our church? Here is a video of Bob talking about it:

One thing I love about Bob (and this video blog) is that he emphasizes where it all has to start for us as leaders – TIME in God’s Word. The closer we stay to the Word, the better we’ll do in the roles God has for us. But he also emphasizes taking the necessary time to get better on our instruments. This is such a healthy balance.

Let’s get in the Word and use it to kill the pride we struggle with. But let’s also sit down with our guitars, pianos, voices, drums, mandolins, banjos, kazoos, etc. and strive to play to the best of our ability for our incredible God.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and support!

It was quite the trip. Our team worked so hard, not only physically, but relationally as well. The language barrier wasn’t a barrier at all with this group. They loved on all the people they came in contact with. They loved each other and bore each other’s burdens all week long. Tim and I were quite proud of them.

As I thought about our team, the missionaries, the church, the children’s home, and all the ministry we did last week, I was very overwhelmed. God did so many great things in all of our lives. We learned so much about the mission field. Here are a few of the insights I learned (or re-learned) through this experience:

Insight #1 – Short-Term Missions Still Works.
Much research has been done to prove the opposite, but after this trip, I feel pretty strongly that it still works. Often, missionaries are left exhausted and with a trail of messes to clean up when missions teams leave. The key is to over-prepare a team and lead them well so as to make sure this doesn’t happen. Our team was a blessing, not a curse, to Russ and Diane Dean. All of our folks went the extra mile to minister to them.

This short-term trip also confirmed vocational ministry for many members of our team. We had 6-8 people on this team that, prior to setting foot in Brazil, had been praying about God’s calling on their lives. One couple had already been working with the IMB for permanent missions placement, and God confirmed the location of that placement while on this trip. Short-term missions (if done the right way) still works.

In addition, we were honored to help the church (IBABI) extend its ministry into a favela (poor neighborhood). The church had been praying about starting a Bible study and maybe even a church in this neighborhood, but they needed a way in. Our group paved that way by providing food and clothing for this neighborhood in the name of the Brazilian church. Here are some pictures of Kasey and Sara and two young ladies from this favela who trusted Christ as their Savior while we were there:

Insight #2 – Learning the Language Makes an Impact.
We taught our team a list of common phrases in Portuguese. But we also took it one step further. To go on this trip, each member of our team had to learn a basic plan of salvation in Portuguese as well. When the Brazilians realized that we came from America and learned a small piece of their language, they were immediately more open to listening to what we had to say. Many times during this trip, there would be a group of kids huddled around one of our team members, intently listening to the Gospel. Here is a picture of Zach Monroe (Asbury) sharing Christ’s love with a group of children and a picture of me sharing my testimony in Portuguese at IBABI:

Insight #3 – Hard Work is Rewarding.
This is the short-list of things our team did while in Brazil: sledge-hammering, drilling, sorting clothing, making food baskets, painting, scraping, etc., etc., etc. Everyone was exhausted everyday. We were all tired – but it was a good tired. A rewarding tired. Doing God’s work is a privilege. Providing a safe, sanitary environment for children is a worthwhile task. Here are two pictures from our work days – one of Chad Wiles (EKU) shoveling and Erin Arnold (UK) with the wheelbarrel – though I think Erin was supposed to be hauling away dirt, not children

Insight #4 – Missionaries are Heroes.
At least these two are… Russ and Diane Dean are incredible servants of Christ. They have had quite a ministry. From Baptist Bible College (Springfield, MO) to Youngstown Baptist Church (now Crossroads Church) to São Paulo, Brazil, they have touched countless hearts and lives. They’ve served in youth ministry, music/worship, church planting (7), and started a center for children. One word – incredible…

Over the past 3 1/2 years, they have dealt with quite a few trials in their lives. Russ needed back and knee surgeries (8 total), and during that difficult process, they wondered if they would ever return to Brazil. But they did. And they are back in action more than ever. Is it for fame and glory? Is it for the money (ha…)? With these two individuals, it is clear that it is for one reason alone – the glory of God. Here is a picture of the three of us together at A Morada da Esperança:

Again, it was a fantastic trip… Everything was good – the food, the ministry, the people – it was all amazing. And so was the coffee. Brazil is known for the coffee. Here is a closing shot of me and Emily Kallenberg enjoying some café do Brasil.

As I said in the previous update, we’ve been running hard here in Jacarei, São Paulo. We’ve are expanding the bathrooms for the children that are ministered to weekly at Haven of Hope. We had the privilege of spending some time with these children this week. Here is a picture of Chad Wiles, an Eastern Kentucky University student, and UK Grad student Phil Kallenberg each with a handful of the boys:

The caretaker of the property is a man named Washington. He does a great job, and he has awesome children. He has two sons – Davi is 7 years old and Tiago is 3. They are so well behaved and always want to jump in and work alongside us. Here is a picture of me and Davi:

Last night we had the greatest meal of our lives. We went into the city of São Paulo and ate at the Boi Preto Churrascaria. The service is incredible – the waiters come around with steaks/chicken/etc. on swords and keep coming until we wave the white flag of surrender. Joey Stafford and I thought we’d died and ended up at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb…

Well, as I said before, we have been sledge-hammering and drilling around the clock. Here is a picture of Zach Monroe (an Asbury student) hard at work:

Of course, I’m only kidding – Zach and Chad have been the pace-setters all trip. God is awesome – he hand-picked the perfect team for this trip. I’ll update one more time – probably on Saturday.