Hugh Halter of Tangible Kingdom fame spoke at PlantR last week. We had a record 68 turn out. Here are some reflections from that meeting.
Books That Don't End: Death By Love
You know the kind of book that is so good you don’t want it to end? I typically experience this with fiction, but this year there have been a few non-fiction books I have read slowly and not finished–because they are so good! Over the next few weeks, I’ll share from some of my reading in the books that I don’t want to end.
Death By Love – This is easily Mark Driscoll’s best book yet. Death By Love is a series of actual letters Mark wrote to people struggling with serious sin and suffering. Here are a few of the chapter titles:
- “Lust Is My God”
Jesus Is Thomas’s Redemption“My Wife Slept with My Friend”
Jesus Is Luke’s New Covenant Sacrifice“I Am a ‘Good’ Christian”
Jesus Is David’s Gift Righteousness“I Molested a Child”
Jesus Is John’s Justification“My Dad Used to Beat Me”
Jesus Is Bill’s Propitiation“He Raped Me”
Jesus Is Mary’s Expiation
Chapter after chapter is charged with honesty, empathy, and wisdom. Rich in practical counsel and biblical theology, this book should be required reading for all courses in Pastoral Ministry. Driscoll takes categories from systematic theology and applies them using biblical theology in a very practical way. Brilliant and grace giving. A basic outline for counseling I use was coined by David Powlision: 1) Listen to their Story 2) Empathize with their Story 3) Redemptively retell their Story. I’ll use this to frame Driscoll’s counsel for a victim of abuse:
- Empathize with Story: “I think I understand what you are trying to say. For a man to devastate his family like your father did means that his simply saying ‘sorry’ is not enough to erase the list of sins he has accrued or the damage h has done. I hope to untangle some of the conflict you are living in…”
- Listened to Story: “you spoke of building forts in the backyard and pretending you lived there instead of in the house with your father because you longed for the day you could move out and never return.”
- Redemptively Retell Story: “Bill, you must realize that not only could God’s active wrath be poured out on your father, but it just as easily could have been poured out on you…not only is your father a sinner who needs his sins propitiated, but you too are a sinner who likewise needs his sins propitiated…not only did Jesus suffer like you; in a very real sense he suffered at the hands of both you and the father at the cross…therefore, therefore you need not merely let your father of the hook because he became a Christian. Further, you need not punish him…I know that you fear forgiving your father…However, because God is sovereign and good, through that evil you have been given one of the deepest appreciations and insights of the doctrine of propitiation of anyone I have ever met.”
9 Marks Missiology
Okay, so maybe American missions work is driven by the same kind of pragmatism that characterizes so many American churches. Is that really such a big deal? Well, stop and consider the differences between planting pragmatically-driven churches in America versus planting them in most Majority World contexts. Such churches in America have the luxury of building themselves upon the foundations of a culture imbued with several hundred years of Christian influence and ethical norms. Fill a room with nominal Christians, as pragmatically-driven churches do, and you still have a dame that looks half way decent. She’ll dress up alright.
There’s some good thinking in this issue of 9 Marks, though I don’t agree with all of it.
Serving the City
Would you take a second to share some ways you are serving your city? Small and big are important. Helping a neighbor to serving on city committees. Go!