Archive for June 2008
no movement in north america
I’ve been reading a few blogs that are thoroughly convicting. There are common themes among the radical apostolic types. It’s this radical recommitment to the simple ways of Jesus. We talk, but we don’t do. And the world knows it. And I’m finding more and more that the linchpin in all this should be discipleship. Following Jesus with reckless abandon. It’s not church methodology… finding a model that you just reproduce… but a simple heart to do what Jesus wants no matter the cost.
David Watson who has been a part of a mind-blowing church planting movement in India says this… wrote this about why there are no real church planting movements in North America:
In the last 15 years, over 40,000 churches sprang up in an area in North India known as the ‘graveyard of missions and missionaries.’ Some of these churches are tenth generation church plants and studies show that the tenth generation is as mature and Biblically sound as the first. While persecution in this area is high, so is the faith of the church. They walk and talk with God. They see miracles everyday. They share their faith. They plant more churches. They pray for the sick. They take care of the widows and orphans. Although many are illiterate, they study the Bible inductively. They believe we have a choice – we read or listen to God’s Word, believe, and obey Him or we don’t. There is no middle ground.
People ask, “Why don’t we see church planting movements in the United States?” It is because we read God’s Word, but are not obedient. We amass knowledge about God, but we don’t do anything with our knowledge. We say we read God’s Word inductively but we usually stop before we get to the hard part: obedience. Until we read God’s Word and obey it, we will not see church planting movements in the United States.
rise up and come away [reigniting a fire]
As I’m reluctantly doing my ordination work, I’m reading through a book that I read a while back… a book that I found really hard to read and not terribly original. But reading it again this time around, I’m finding it to be pretty invigorating. It’s “The Pursuit of God” by AW Tozer. One of the prophetic pillars of the CMA.
One of the endorsements on the back from the Steve Green:
“The writings of Tozer shake me from slumber, inspire grand thoughts of God and expose the compromise in my heart.”
Yikes, who wants that.
A prayer that I’ve been praying these days from chapter 1 of the book is:
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God. I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Two things sort of jarring me this past month:
