That was the title of the Element message last Sunday night. It's a hot topic, so I thought I'd share some of the points in this space for anybody who missed it.

I began my treatment of the subject by challenging the notion that God is ever silent. I acknowledged that quite frequently he doesn't speak to us the way we'd like him to or that he doesn't say what we want to hear, but neither scenario is the same thing as him not speaking at all.
What I propose is that God seems silent because he is broadcasting on a frequency that we are not tuned to receive him on.

This opened up the discussion to cover a) the ways God is speaking, and b) the reasons we don't hear him.

Read the whole thing by clicking on Read More . . .

This is the video we showed at Element last night. Powerful stuff.

This was shot for Saddleback Church's HIV/AIDS initiative.
There is one thing I disagree with Straton on. He says he did nothing tangible to help. I'd say that holding, visiting, counseling, feeding, praying, and comforting is very tangible. Being the Body of Christ is as tangible as it gets.

And if more of us would, as Straton says, "Just show up" fewer and fewer people would feel like God is silent.

Probably. Maybe. I don't know.

But this Sunday night at Element we're gonna be talking about the whole "end times," rapture-type stuff. Left Behind, pre/post/mid tribulation, mark of the beast, trumpets sounding, dead bodies rising.

Yes. It's gonna be trippy.

Sunday, 6:30 p.m.
The Onion @ BCC

We began a new series at Element last Sunday called "Coffee Shop Theology," in which we're answering and addressing your submitted questions and topics. In our first message we tackled the question, "Why don't I love Jesus as much as I want to?"

After briefly touching on the harsh reality that the level at which we currently love Jesus is the level at which we currently want to, I reframed the question to ask, "Why don't we love Jesus as much as we ought to?"

There is an implied angst in the original question, and the more I minister with young adults the more I find this desperate frustration of wanting to do more, be more, experience more in the spiritual life is epidemic. We have this vague sense that there is a "there" to get to, but try as we might, we never get "there."

This is when the gospel enters and works its wonder.

The truth is that no amount of doing/being/trying will get us "there" (wherever that is). And when we realize that harsh reality, the heavy truth that our efforts are constantly insufficient (that although we must obey the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we can't in actuality obey this command perfectly), we have two options: despair completely or despair of ourselves and press further into the perfect love of Christ.

Grace is so freeing.

Our love is a failing love. And that should grieve us. But it should also stir us to wonder over and rejoice in and experience satisfaction in the unfailing love of God in Jesus.

Isn't the gospel awesome?

Josh, David, Sarah, and I visited Kairos last night, an awesome young adult ministry sponsored by Brentwood Baptist Church here in Nashville. The worship service was a fantastic example of God-centered singing and cross-centered teaching, which is always an encouragement to us, because gospel-centered churches are few and far between even here in the Bible belt. To see a big group of mostly college students and young professionals -- more than 1/3 of which have no church background -- engaging in the exaltation of Christ and the exposition of Scripture is great cause for hope.

After the service, Pastor Mike Glenn and the Kairos team were gracious enough to meet with us and were very generous with their time. I know the exhaustion that kicks in after the adrenaline burst of preaching and leading a worship service, so the fact that they stayed for several hours afterwards to make us feel welcome and counseled was amazing.

The Element team learned a lot and were greatly encouraged. We found out we have quite a bit more in common with Kairos' philosophy and story than we realized. They shared, they listened, they encouraged. They talked about starting with 12 people and a big idea. They talked about protecting the worship culture of the community. They talked about nurturing a discipleship culture of a distinct community within a church with a very different culture.
And then they prayed for us.

This meeting came four days after my having another sit-down with Ray Ortlund, so I feel like this week God has been so good to me in putting me in the presence of experience, wisdom, and insight.

My encouragement to other pastors and leaders is to reach out to people who have been there, who are doing what you're doing and ask lots of questions and then listen, listen, listen. Warning: If you treat your church like a business, you will treat other churches like your competition.

We've already got David setting up some more meetings for us, even if just so we can create some mutually supportive friendships and partnerships.

So long as I have any say in the matter, we'll never do something like this.
(Source)

We will have no such thing approximating a second class membership.
We're not gonna limit your "membership" according to your means of baptism, because your means of salvation was the same as everyone else's -- Jesus.

For those who are familiar with the ins and outs of such things, I favor a Piperian approach to these scenarios, which is to say that I support credobaptism for our church practice, but full recognition and acceptance of believers who were baptized in churches practicing paedobaptism.

Just fyi.

Coffee Shop Theology begins this Sunday. Here's the calendar of scheduled messages, answering your submitted and voted-on questions/topics.

May 11 – Why don't I love Jesus as much as I want to?

May 18 – What is the right attitude toward unlovable, never-gonna-change people?

May 25 – The "end times" and the rapture.

June 1 – Why does it seem like God is silent?

June 8 – How do you die to yourself and put on Christ?

June 15 – Predestination and free will.

June 22 – How do I know God's will for me or His calling on my life?

June 29 – Demons and spiritual warfare

This is gonna be a great series!

We've got one message left in our current series -- (re)build: Hope from Habakkuk -- but we're answering your questions in our new series beginning the next Sunday.

Coffee Shop Theology begins May 11!

Here are the 8 subjects/questions that gained the most votes in our poll and will be the messages in the series.

1. Why does it seem like God is silent?
2. The "end times" and the rapture.
3. Predestination and free will.
4. Demons and spiritual warfare.
5. What is the right attitude toward unlovable, never-gonna-change people?
6. Why don't I love Jesus as much as I want to?
7. How do I know God's will for me or His calling on my life?
8. How do you die to yourself and put on Christ?

Order to be determined soon.

This is gonna be a great series on some interesting "hot potato"-type topics. Don't miss it! (And bring a friend!)

Element meets for worship every Sunday night at 6:30 in the Onion on the campus of Bellevue Community Church.

Element has not had a formulated list of "values" as you see in most contemporary churches today. We don't really even have a vision/mission statement per se, despite the fact that one of the first questions someone asked at our very first prospective leadership team meeting in 2006 was "What's our mission statement?" We have generally been opposed to having such things just because you're supposed to have them, and the closest we've come is this line from our About page: Our passion is to cultivate a growing, redemptive environment for real spiritual growth and connection to God and others.

But this week our board of directors have approved an official list of Values to be included in our official documentation and on the website. This is a way of having in writing a measuring stick for Element's future efforts, programs, and attitudes, but it also serves as an antidote to the values prevailing in the church scene today. So instead of "creativity," "relevance," "the potential of people," etc., the Values of Element Ministries are:

The Glory of God
With the Westminster Confession of Faith, we agree that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Our highest value and greatest good is that God be glorified in all we do, that His name be renowned and hallowed, and that He would increase and we would decrease. We look forward to the day when "the knowledge of His glory fills the earth like the waters cover the sea."
(Hab. 2:14; 1 Cor. 10:31; Rom. 11:36)

The Supremacy of Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is the King over all kings, the Lord over all lords, and the mighty Savior of sinners. As Jesus is God incarnate, our advocate and sacrifice, risen three days after death to glorified bodily life, and as He sits at the right hand of the Father and at the head of the Church, we treasure Him above all things. We believe the authentic Christian life is one that trusts all life and death to Jesus and is completely satisfied in Him alone.
(Col. 1:15-23; Eph. 2)

The Gospel
"We will not be ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of salvation for all who believe," and consequently, our worship and our discipleship and our missions and our fellowship will be exercised in the joy and power of the amazing grace God has lavished on us in Jesus. We affirm a robust gospel that affects all areas of life, a kingdom gospel that both satisfies the poor and the poor in spirit and the hungry and those hungry for righteousness. In word and deed, we believe that the good news that Jesus Christ has died and risen to save sinners and reconcile them to God is, as Paul says, "of first importance."
(Romans 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-10; 1 Cor. 9:23)

Our Neighbors
Obedience to Jesus means first and foremost obeying the Great Commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." We believe that a living faith in Jesus is made manifest in a selfless love and care for our neighbors, in a sharing of the grace that has been given to us, and in our "being all things to all people that we might win some." In fulfillment of the Great Commission call to go into all the world and proclaim Jesus and make disciples, we will embody the kingdom call of the Sermon on the Mount, which calls for grace-filled relationships with all men.
(Mark 12:33; James 1:27; 1 Cor. 13:13; Mt. 5:1-10)

The Church
We believe the Church universal and the local church as her agents constitute the spiritual Body of Christ and are to embody the gospel of love and sacrifice of Jesus to the glory of God. We believe the Church is to testify to and model the kingdom of God being made manifest in the world and that it is to be a living picture of the good news of reconciliation with God and with each other. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and it is in the community of Christ that disciples of Jesus are best equipped, trained, nurtured, and empowered. God's plan for the spread of the gospel places the Church at the forefront of the Great Commission.
(Mt. 16:18; Eph. 3:10-11; Heb. 10:24-25; Rev. 5:9-10)

These are the values we have already been committed to and best reflect our mission to "bring Nashville's emerging generation into a fuller discipleship to Jesus Christ and a greater vitality in Christian community."

We are two messages into a series on Habakkuk at Element right now, and while we are focusing on four connected requirements it gives us for living the Christian life -- brokenness, repentance, worship, and faith -- the prevailing theme of the short three chapters of the book is the sovereignty of God. Habakkuk's conversation with God says one thing most clearly: "God is in charge."
Or, as in Habakkuk 2:20, "But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him."

There are obvious shades of "Who are you, o man, to say to God . . .?" and not so subtle shades of "Keep your fool mouth shut," but as it comes at the end of stanzas pronouncing woes on all the ways the Chaldeans (and everybody else) pursue their own glory, I think what it really means is, "God is the one who is in charge; better get with the program."

God has an agenda and it is not only not ours, it frequently and constantly interferes with and opposes ours. We are used to thinking in terms of God helping us in our life, that our life is "our story" and we invite God to participate in it, and that is so bass ackwards. It is God's story, God's world, God's life, and we get to participate in it.
This is never more vivid in Habakkuk than in the way God answers Habakkuk's complaints. He does so completely outside of Habakkuk's assumptions and preferences and expectations. In a nutshell, the conversation kinda goes like this:

Habakkuk: God, there is so much sin and injustice in Israel, why aren't you doing something about it? Where are you and why aren't you listening to me?

God: I'm here. I'm about to do something awesome about it.

Habakkuk: Sweet!

God: I'm raising up idolaters to come destroy you.

Habakkuk: Um . . .

God: Seriously.

Habakkuk: But why would you use wicked people to judge good people?

(Jared's Note of Irony: Notice that Habakkuk takes this tack right after saying Israel was wicked and God should do something about it.)

God: Oh, I'm going to destroy them too.

I'm trying to be humorous with that nutshell summation, and Habakkuk's faith is actually remarkable in that he continues to faithfully acknowledge God's goodness and holiness and righteousness even in the expectation of pain and suffering, but that is really the gist. God has an agenda, and it is not ours.

Last week we focused on Habakkuk 2, and I colored the point of the woes over man seeking worldly pleasures and satisfactions as a call to repent of our glory and turn toward God's. That is what repentance really is; it's not going from being a bad person to being a "good person," because being a good person is impossible and doesn't work. Repentance, rather, is trusting God and submitting to God's agenda for His own glory, even when it means hardship and suffering and self-denial.

This is why corporate worship tainted with how good, faithful, strong, whatever we are is a dangerous, dangerous path. We should not gather to sing even for one second our own praises.

The worship God is seeking relies completely on His initiative, knowing that the only true expression of worship is through the abandonment of all our agendas for His, as we trust in His sovereign power and unlimited grace. It is from this heart posture that true liturgy flows, that music and arts find their highest calling and that the light of a worshipping community shines as a beacon of hope to a suffering and searching world.
-- David Ruis

(HT for the quote: Joe Byler)