We in the Free Grace camp need to think BIG about the future. I am not sure if I mentioned in my post about the Acts 29 conference I went to, but my biggest ache on that day was that all these men were going out to plant churches, and they were all Lordship/Calvinistic.
In my post on Emergent Immersion, Don Reiher made the following comment which I thought was so good, I would post it here:
To be perfectly honest, I cannot stand any of the churches in the area. In the Philadelphia area, there are really no good churches. ALL and I mean ALL the “good” mild lordship Bible believing Baptist churches have gone totally reformed over the last 30 years (yes I was born and raised here). There are a few mild lordship Bible churches, but the vast majority are hardline lordship. Then there are the KJV only, legalistic kind of churches.
I go to one of the “mild” lordship ones (75% of the elders are lordship, the pastor says he is free grace, but still makes me wonder). The music is horrible. I cannot blame people for going to “emergent” churches.
BTW. . . I recently read several books from Dan Kimball on Emergent issues, Emerging Worship
, and The Emerging Church
. I think his material is much better than McLaren’s.
My point, is, my heart aches for the 20s/30s today. When I was that age, there were still some decent churches around. I learned so much doctrine in church, that when I went to Moody in 1979, I already had read most of the books for my classes. It was simply building on what I already knew. Nowadays, I think people are hungry, and will take whatever scraps of food people like Piper throw at them.
People seem to think that you have to throw away all the teaching of the great men of the last century because it doesn’t match with the Westminster Confession. They think they are going back to their roots, by going back to the Reformation, rather than going back to the Bible.
I think we in the Free Grace movement should start putting together some of these big mega-conferences and provide some good worship bands, and dish out a good diet of sound teaching, from a free grace perspective. We need to provide an example of what God is like, and what missions are like, from a NON-Calvinistic, Non-Reformed perspective. In my opinion, their perspective of God is puny compared to what God is really like. Their perspective of the Gospel and missions is a massive confusion, dried up and withered, compared to the clear, fresh streams of water the more Free Grace type folks can provide for them.
I don’t think we could get 20,000 college people, but I bet we could get several thousand. More importantly, I think God would honor it. We in the Free Grace camp need to think big, and think “next generation.
I agree with this 100%. Thank you Don!
Thanks.
However. . . This was a quickie while late for work. There are several typos. . .
I wrote:
People don’t seem to think that you have to throw away all the teaching of the great men of the last century because it doesn’t match with the Westminster Confession.
I meant:
People seem to think that you have to throw away all the teaching of the great men of the last century, because it doesn’t match with the Westminster Confession.
It’s an amazing vision Jeremy and one that I pray I will see in the near future. If God is for us, who can be against us?
Don,
I’ll fix that typo…
i dont think you can simply label ‘x church’ as the solution to the church planting, evangelical explosion, or even evangelical upkeep of America. every church has its own problems, and perhaps you really are thinking ‘what can WE do about it?’ instead of ‘all the churches in my area totally fail!’ but it is quite difficult. It is important that we work together as a team instead of run screaming away from each other. I mean, what value does unity in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit if we are not interested in each other even as just evangelical Christians; much less the grouping of mormons, catholics, jews, jehovah’s witnesses, and any other group that might – from the outside looking in – decide to label the lot of us as “Christian”?
Think of it this way. Without Luther (haha, the precursor to the father of this reformation that you seem to be gloomy about), the concept of independent pursuit of an individual relationship would have not come into play. Instead, we would be back in the dark ages paying penance for the greater catholic church to read and decipher the Latin Bible for us all to know and understand God’s will for our lives.
The factions of evangelical Christianity, fathered from the independent spirit that Luther used to define a personal religion (in contrast to the corporate european church), are not the singlemost downfall of our relgious society. I am certain you found your relationship with God with a greater clarity in the school of thought that you espouse. Indeed, the factions serve as a personalization tool; a customization to the person participating in assisting and aiding understanding, enthusiasm, and purpose. Think of it as ‘pimp your ride’ concept in NFS Underground. In this video game, the level of unique customization is unparalelled to any prior game. Yet, even with the customization, the original vehicle is intact, fulfilling its original purpose.
My point is, despite how you may feel about the ‘cobalt blue’ customization of the reformation crowd compared to your ‘aquamarine pearl’ free grace paintjob; the underlying vehicle of evangelical Christianity is the same and unity of direction and purpose should be pursued instead of denied. Yes, churches today need to refocus on the Bible and the ‘new movements’ of “emergent church” “relevant” “contemporary” “modern” might offer a unique and plausible path for reaching these goals. Yet, whatever shade of color your paint your car, your ultimate path of submission to Christ and His will to complete the paths He has pre-planned for your life through the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit.. IS what we are all about and nothing less or more. If you contest to my previous sentence, I can break down for you, verse by verse, how each phrase correlates to a verse in the Bible, but I digress. I would rather simply hope that you truly understand it in your heart, and you desire not to bring the dissention that your post implies, but you would rather unite evangelical Christianity |with|if|as much as| humanly possible
I’m not sure where I stand on the Free Grace vs Lordship issue. Quite frankly, I am not entirely sure on the difference between the two in this article as I thought both had roots in Calvinism. Do you consider Piper to be Lordship or Free Grace?
My thought is that belief is all that is required for salvation, but that true belief will result in a holy life. If someone’s life is not characterized by a heart change, then they do not really believe God or His promises. The works they do will not save them, but the work that Christ did will change them. So which camp does that put me in?
Then again, maybe you shouldn’t answer that. It think this just goes to show the problem with labels on theology: they rapidly lead to confusion and division. I trust the Spirit to lead me as I go back to scripture, not to doctrinal creeds or catechisms recognizing that I will probably never understand it all fully.
Piper is definitely in the “Lordship” camp.
To be honest, while I fall into the “Free Grace” camp, I define things and understand several things a lot differently than many who are in that camp.
When I wrote this post, I loved labels. Now I am more like you, in that I think labels divide people and create barriers between us, and keep us from accomplishing God’s mission in the world.