Author: Jonathan Dodson

5 Ways to Fail My Church

Posted on March 25, 2010

Reading through the Pastoral letters of the New Testament, I’ve been struck by the fact that if I don’t insist on Gospel-centered doctrine in my church, then I will fail you in at least five ways. If I don’t insist on Gospel-centered doctrine, then…

  1. The church will devolve into a socially-minded non-profit or a consumeristic Groupon. The gospel of Jesus Christ is what sets the church apart from any other organization or community. If I remove the gospel, or don’t insist on its centrality in everything we do, then you do not need the church. You can find social service outlets with better non-profits and community with Groupon gatherings.
  2. You will lose a substantial reason for living in community and on mission. Though anyone can experience community and mission outside of the church, it is a gospel-centered church that keeps mission and community from becoming your raison d’etre (reason for being). If community becomes your reason for being, then your community will likely become ingrown, selfish, snobbish, cliquish NOT inclusive, diverse, generous, growing, and vibrant. If mission is your raison d’etre, they mission will eventually become optional or so essential that you will look down on others who aren’t on mission. Only the gospel can call us away from these two extremes because it reminds us that Jesus Christ is our raison d’etre. Bottomline, community and mission will always fail you but Jesus will not. You need a church that reminds you of that.
  3. I will become unfaithful to what the Bible teaches and misrepresent historic Christianity to you. This is intellectually dishonest, historically unfaithful, and theologically untenable. You need a pastor who does not see doctrine as an end in itself, but that the gospel is the end of every doctrine.
  4. I will remove the one Person that consistently loves you, satisfies you, beautifies you, and releases you into your created purpose–to glorify God by enjoying him and calling others into a life of spreading that gospel joy over all the earth.
  5. I will remove the very Person and principle upon which the church was formed–Jesus Christ. Not only is this inconsistent, it is a genetic fallacy, distorting something from its designed purpose, tampering with its DNA.

2 Books on Gospel Change

Posted on March 25, 2010

Westminster Bookstore is running a great deal on two great books. For One Week Only get both books for $14.50! (50% off retail price).

Offer expires on Thursday, April 1st.

Buy both for $14.50
« (50% Off) »

How to be Happy in God

Posted on March 25, 2010

Darrin Patrick, pastor of The Journey Church in St. Louis, shares some helpful reflections on his own spiritual journey wiht prayer and Scripture reading. He points us to George Muller, a great man of faith who started five orphanages on Ashley Down and filled them with hundreds of abused, neglected, and abandoned children. He had the faith of ten thousand church planters, but beneath his great faith and prayer for God’s provision was a goal even more noble that housing and caring for orphans, a goal greater than ministry or church planting. This goal was to be happy in God, and to bring others into that happiness. Darrin shares some of Muller’s thoughts on this:

Darrin on Mueller

I have always struggled with prayer as a Christian. I was sharing my frustration one day with my seminary professor and spiritual disciplines guru Don Whitney. Dr. Whitney shared with me a quote for George Müller, a godly giant of the faith who also struggled with prayer. This is from an entry in George Müller’s diary, dated May 7, 1841.

Mueller on Happiness in God

    I saw more clearly than ever that the first great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord . . . not how much I might serve the Lord, . . . but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers . . . and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been . . . to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning.
      Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.
    John Piper came to similar conclusions several decades ago. He reflects on Mueller and happiness in God here.

    Stetzer Interviews Vanderstelt re: MissionSHIFT

    Posted on March 24, 2010

    Check out the helpful interview between Stetzer and Vanderstelt regarding the upcoming MissionSHIFT conference. Jeff will be leading a lab at the missionSHIFT Conference titled, “Transitioning a Church to Missional.” An excerpt from the interview gives us a glimpse into the “real time” mission going on in Jeff’s live. He’s not just a theorist; he’s on mission:

    This looks like meals together with believers and unbelievers 2-4 times a week; cleaning up the yard of our widowed neighbor next store; serving at the elementary’s auctions, community events and after school programs; going through “The Story of God” 1-2 times a year with unbelievers to introduce them to the Gospel; sharing our house for others to live with us and join us on the mission; having an “open door” policy to our neighbors and friends; throwing parties regularly to meet more people who we hope will also come to faith in Jesus; etc… We focus on demonstrating the change the Gospel makes in our lives through tangible expressions of serving and declaring the reason why we live this way by sharing the Gospel.