does your pastor preach?

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, questions, 3 Comments on does your pastor preach?

This past Sunday, Mother’s Day, our pastor gave a poignant intro to his sermon.

In this intro, he explained what he means by “preaching”.  I found it to be very helpful and foundational.  So many post-moderns aren’t used to being preached to.  To be sure, preaching has a very negative association attached to it.  But God has ordained and commanded preaching for the advancement of the Gospel and the growth and sanctification of His church.

We’re so much more used to lectures or talks or a series or even a testimony.

Here’s what Pastor John had to say:

So what do you think?  Does your pastor preach?  Or would you rather hear a relevant* 15 minute “talk” on how to… improve your finances, sex life, parenting, or productivity?

*Relevant is a subjective term.  I’m using it loosely, as I believe preaching the Word is much more eternally relevant than a how-to talk.

parents, are you moralists or theologians?

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, family, questions, recommendations, 5 Comments on parents, are you moralists or theologians?

Of course the two aren’t mutually exclusive.  

But what’s your bent when you teach your kids what Christianity is all about?  I admit that it’s easier for me to fall into teaching my kids the moralistic part of Christianity as the main point.

Bruce Ware, Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary, has a new book out called, Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God.  Justin Taylor interviews him about it on his blog.  

Here’s the killer excerpt:

I suspect that most parents are more comfortable teaching their kids Christian ethics (love God, don’t love the world, tell the truth, don’t cheat or steal, etc.) than they are teaching them Christian theology (how can God be three and one? How is Jesus God and man?). Why is it important for parents to learn good theology and pass it on to their kids?

He follows up the question by saying:

The Christian faith is not moralism. Yet, we can (wrongly and dangerously!) pervert the Christian faith into this, in our homes and our churches. Our lists of “do’s” and “don’t’s” can become the sum and substance of our understanding of the Christian faith, and in this self-esteem saturated culture, this ends up redounding to the glory of the “self,” not the glory of God.

How much time do I spend making sure my kids understand the morality of Christianity compared to the time I spend diligently teaching them the truths of who God is, why Jesus came, and the total depravity of man.  We do talk about them, but is it primary?    

Moralism is easy.

It’s easy for grown-ups and kids.  We all know what to do with a rule.  Don’t lie.  Be kind.  Pray often.  Don’t envy.  And then we either feel good about keeping it or we feel good about breaking it.  Or guilty.  But massive weighty truths about God affect us differently.  They actually have the power to transform our mind, our heart, our worldview.

Here’s some truths that Dr. Ware says we all need to embrace, learn and teach:

  • who God is in his eternal fullness as the triune God,
  • who God is as Creator of all that is,
  • who we are as created in his image,
  • what sin is and has done to us,
  • why Christ came, who Christ is,
  • what he accomplished,
  • how we receive the benefits of his work on the cross,
  • what God provides for us to grow as his people,
  • what these communities of faith called “churches” are and what they contribute,
  • and what hope we have for life now and forever

I haven’t read Dr. Ware’s book, so I won’t endorse it.  But the stuff from his interview sure is helpful.  

How do you navigate being a parent-theologian?  It’s a big job isn’t it?!

daily devotions: life-giving or performance-based?

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, questions, 5 Comments on daily devotions: life-giving or performance-based?

I read a great article by Tim Challies called The Quiet Time Performance.  

Here’s the heart of the article where he quotes Jerry Bridges:

Why is it that we tend to think this way? [meaning that God will bless us for good quiet times and punish us for bad] According to Bridges, we’ve come to believe that God’s blessing on our lives is somehow conditional upon our spiritual performance. In other words, if we’ve performed well and done our quiet time as we ought to have done, we have put ourselves in a place where God can bless us. We may not consciously articulate this, but we prove that we believe it when we have a bad day and are certain that on this day we are absolutely unworthy of God’s blessings. This attitude “reveals an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life: the thinking that, although we are saved by grace, we earn or forfeit God’s blessings in our daily lives by our performance.”

Do you think of quiet times this way?   (By quiet times I mean read the Word and pray).  On the days when you miss, are you just waiting for God to be “dishing out bummers”?  I think Challies has hit on some crucial points to help those who do quiet times for performance.  The kind of people who are sharing what they “learned” in quiet times more to show off or make sure everyone knows that they had quiet time than anything else.

If you brag about your quiet time, there may be a problem.

The same people who try to impress man with their devotions are probably also trying to impress God.  

But I’d like to come at it from the other side as well.  Yes, there are people who do quiet times for performance.  And if we end the conversation there, many people will, (now liberated) say, “Aha, I don’t need to do quiet times, God’s blessing on my life is secured by the death of his Son.”  

They’d be right.  Challies says, “Quiet time becomes tyrannical when you understand it as a performance.” 

So perhaps to end the tyranny, we should end the quiet times.

No!  Of course not, and that’s not what Challies is saying.  Here’s some of his concluding remarks:

So what, then, does Scripture command? It commands that the Word of God be constantly upon your heart. You are to pray, to read the Scripture and to meditate upon it, but you are to do so from a joyful desire, and not mere performance-based duty.

To look at devotions as mere duty, done to gain favor is lethal.  But to see them for what they should be, namely, the means by which I survive from day to day, they become a precious grace, not a performance for a blessing.  They are Air. Water.  Food for my soul.  

My pastor says it best in regard to prayer specifically (although I think the same can be said for Bible reading).  In answer to the question, “Is prayer a duty?” he says:

You can call it that. It’s a duty the way it’s the duty of a scuba diver to put on his air tank before he goes underwater. It’s a duty the way pilots listen to air traffic controllers. It’s a duty the way soldiers in combat clean their rifles and load their guns. It’s a duty the way hungry people eat food. It’s a duty the way thirsty people drink water. It’s a duty the way a deaf man puts in his hearing aid. It’s a duty the way a diabetic takes his insulin. It’s a duty the way Pooh Bear looks for honey. It’s a duty the way pirates look for gold.

And so, Challies says, quiet time should come from a joyful desire.  I think it should also come from a desperate need.  Desperation is more often my motivation than joy.  I’m needy.  I’m sinful.  Without the Word and prayer I get lost.  

And the more I’m in the Word, the more my need for it increases, not the other way around.  The more I pray, the more I need to pray.  

There’s no amount of time that is the “right” amount of time to do devotions.  Some will gain more for their soul from teaching a child one tiny verse and letting it affect their life and heart than others who spend hours studying.  Some are praying all through their day and others set aside a time to do so.  

The point is to rail against legalism, while preserving the Water that is the Word of God and prayer for thirsty people.

Any thoughts, readers?

is safety a virtue or vice?

By: Abigail Dodds
everyday, family, kiddos, questions, , 12 Comments on is safety a virtue or vice?

Sometimes I will admit to people, “I’m not a real safety-oriented mom.”  

I hope you aren’t gasping in horror.  But it’s true (although mostly unintentional).  I just don’t think of safety a whole lot.  And it’s not because I’ve never been in proximity to people who have had bad things happen to them, like car accidents or other types of accidents.  I think it’s more of a combination of the way I was raised and what I hope is common sense.  Though I may be wrong on that.

Does knowledge require action?  If I know that kids are safer when wearing a helmet, am I then required (morally) to have them wear one?  And how often is often enough?  When riding bikes?  Scooters?  Running fast?  Always when on pavement?  When riding in a car?  In the home?

For me, I think of helmets as essential when on a high traffic street or when riding a motorcycle.  But it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me to let kids ride their bicycles without one in a neighborhood with minimal, slow-driving traffic.

But is this a legitimate moral line I’ve drawn?  Or just preference?  When does safety become a must?

Should I have child locks on my cupboards?  Should we have a barrier to our pond (although the tall grasses provide a pretty good one.)?  A fence around our yard?  The standard for safety seems to be getting higher and higher.  So much so that I believe our children will be in car seats until they are teens.  I wish I were joking about that.

Should I be viewing high safety standards as a bit of common grace from God that allows us to better protect our children?  Or is it a type of idol that we are enslaved to, giving us a false sense of control in regard to our children’s well-being?  Or maybe it could be either.  

Our parents certainly didn’t have the safety standards we do, but they also lacked the information and equipment.  So how much safety is enough to assuage our consciences that we’ve done enough?  

What are your must-do safety standards?  Do you think a high regard for safety brings glory to God?  What about those who are unconcerned with safety?  Can this view bring glory to God?

have you heard the good news?

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, mustread, questions, , 1 Comment on have you heard the good news?

If you have spent any time at this blog, I hope you’ve noticed something.  I hope you’ve noticed an inescapable theme woven through and shaping all my thinking and writing.  The theme is the Gospel.

I have opinions about many things, and I can say with certainty that many of them are flawed.  Sometimes our opinions are a reflection of ourselves, they’re subjective and based on subjective life circumstances.  But there are times when our “opinions” are really beliefs, beliefs based on a reality.  

I think that what I believe about God and His Son, Jesus, and the Bible is one of the latter things.  It is a belief based on a fact, a reality, a truth.  

If I said I believe Lincoln was the President during the Civil War and gave the Gettysburg address and was assassinated while watching the opera, that belief would be true.  It is based on actual events that happened.  

I believe the Bible to have the same sort of historical factual information, and much much more.

Here are the nuts and bolts of what I believe:

God made the earth and Adam and Eve.  They lived in harmony with God, until they sinned.  After they sinned they were separated from God and they and the earth became cursed as a result of their evil.  

The sin problem plagued every human from then on.  It has been life’s biggest, most serious problem.  Their sin, and ours, is against a holy and perfect God who cannot tolerate it and must send sinners to eternal punishment.

For hundreds of years, God’s people, Israel, tried to make peace with God by sacrificing animals to atone for their sin.  God was gracious in forbearing with these less than perfect sacrifices.  

Prophets like Isaiah foretold the coming of a man, called the Messiah, who would save the people from their sins.  And that this Savior would save more than just Israel, but would be for all peoples.  He would be the perfect sacrifice needed to bring peace with God and overcome sin and death.  He would, in fact, be God incarnate.

This God-man, the Messiah, named Jesus, was born of a virgin Mary, he was begotten of God the Father, and He lived a perfect life.  He loved everyone perfectly and was good and just and all the things we might try to be, but fail.  

Eventually He was hanged on a cross.  This was the will of His Father.  It was part of a plan that the Father had to bring reconciliation between Himself and sinful people.  The same sinful people that crucified Christ, would now have the opportunity for peace with God through the very death they enacted.  Jesus was crushed for our iniquity.  

And after He was murdered on our behalf, He rose from the dead after three days, thereby defeating death forever.  

When He rose from the dead, He was seen by many witnesses and even ate a meal with His disciples.  Then God took Him up to heaven.  

This all happened over 2000 years ago.  You can read about it in the Bible.  The Bible is God’s Word.  This means that what is written in the Bible is not simply an historical account (although it is that too), but God’s very words to us, that He inspired mere humans to write.  Everything in it is True and for the benefit of sinful people to come to God and know God and glorify God.  

For me, this is good news.  

This is life-changing news.  It is Life for my dead heart. It is Light for my dark mind.  It is Bread for my hungry soul.  It is the Way, when all ways were shut.  It is the Good Shepherd, when all had gone astray.  It is the Truth, when lies were closing in.  

Does this sound like good news to you?  

Do you sense God’s Holy Spirit beckoning you to taste and see that the Lord is good?  Do you long to cast your burden of sin onto Jesus, gaining for yourself freedom from sin and joy in loving God in this life and forever in heaven?  Do you want to give thanks to God for this gift?  Do you desire to see His name made great, because you now see that He is Great?

I hope you do.  I hope you want to run and find the nearest Bible to learn more about this thing called Christianity.  I hope you decide to find a church that believes the Bible and is depending on Christ for their salvation through faith alone (trusting and believing God), by grace alone (not depending on good works). 

If you want to hear the good news again, in someone else’s words.  Here it is:

Please contact me or a Christian in your life, if you have turned from your sin and are now resting in Christ’s Righteousness.

sunday misadventures

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, confessions, everyday, questions, , , 9 Comments on sunday misadventures

Every parent knows the strange things that can happen on a Sunday morning that prevent you from getting out your door and into the doors of church.  

It’s a universal phenomenon.  

The baby spitting up moments after getting her sunday clothes on.  The preschooler who’s missing a shoe.  The school-age child who is buckled in the car, only to remember they forgot the baby bottle they’ve been collecting change in that is due back this very Sunday.

This Sunday surpassed our usual Sunday slow-downs.

It started with Elianna.  My 17-month-old’s nose started to drip blood out one side like a leaky faucet, just a I’m getting coats on the older two.   By the time I reached her, she had smeared it everywhere and looked like she came straight from Nightmare on Elm Street.

We made it to church on time, but were slowed by a lack of parking and long lines at the kids’ check-in.  When I sat down for the service, the announcements had just begun.  I’m thinking, not too bad.

After church, I herd the kids to the car by myself, because Tom had been to first service, having played on the worship team.  He left after he was done playing for second service to head home and shovel/salt the driveway for small group at our house later that night.  So it’s just the kids and me.

The kids are buckled and I hear Eliza push the lever to close the automatic sliding door on our minivan–not unusual, however, the sounds I heard upon the door latching were quite out of the ordinary.  Her screams still echo in my head as I write this.  

Her hand was shut in the door.  The 3-5 seconds it took me to find the button to re-open the door and free her hand were some of the longest in my life.  

I generally think of myself as cool under pressure.  But it took everything I had to contain the utter chaos I felt inside.  I wanted to scream for help and tear my clothes.  And I hadn’t even had my hand shut in the door!

So, I quickly find a friend who’s cell phone I can borrow to call Tom and tell him I’m heading for the ER, just certain that her hand is broken.  Her crying is still pretty intense and the hand looks ugly.  He agrees to meet me there.  But, after returning the cell phone and having my friend look at it, things didn’t seem quite so bad.

The crying slowed to an intermittent whimper and the hand was now bending and recognizable.  

After making an ice-pack with a plastic target bag and some handfuls of snow, we decide to go home.  At home, Tom is waiting anxiously for us in the garage.  He examines the hand and by now, it is swollen some, but moving well.  And Eliza is cheerful.

But wait, there’s more.

I begin cleaning and vacuuming for small group.  Pretty soon, Eliza comes upstairs saying, “There’s a big flood down there.”  I think, hmmm, maybe Tom overflowed the toilet.  Nope.  Eliza says, “It’s in the laundry room.  Daddy’s cleaning it up.”  

Turns out, Tom had turned the faucet on in our utility sink in the laundry room.  He was going to clean out our Bissel wet vac, which had been used the prior Sunday to clean up vomit (we were all sick), when he got the call about Eliza’s hand.  He had quickly forgotten the water in the sink during the mayhem of the moment.  Thankfully, he cleaned up the flooded laundry room, with no damage to the house.  

And here’s my confession.

When he told me that he’d forgotten about the water turned on in the sink, my first reply was, “Oh, you went to watch the game and forgot about it?”  Ouch.  Nothing like assuming the worst and being 100% wrong.  Well, I’m hoping for a very uneventful next Sunday.  And if I can’t get that, I’ll settle for a Sunday sans blood, mangled hands or floods.  

Do you have any Sunday stories?

critical thinking in love

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, confessions, questions2 Comments on critical thinking in love

I am sometimes bothered when lay Christians defer to Christian leaders on controversial matters that they might be afraid to speak up about on their own or simply don’t form an opinion but defer totally to the belief of another.

Another closely related issue is when lay Christians legitimize their viewpoint based on the fact that an esteemed Christian leader agrees with them (or they with the leader).  

I do this all the time.  I bother myself.  

Not to say it’s wrong to do this.  There is such a thing as a trusted Christian leader who has proven themselves faithful to the Bible and we are not wrong to trust them.  However, no matter how trusted the Christian leader, they will never be a replacement for good, old-fashioned-Biblical-critical thinking.  God has given us His God-breathed Word and a brain and a soul.  We should make good use of them.

We can never fully trust any human being to be perfectly faithful to the Word.  Sin is real.  It is ugly and real in my own life and I know that it is also ugly and real in the lives of the Christian men to whom I submit myself.   I think we (I) are on shaky ground when we read a book by someone our Christian community respects and as we read we let our Biblical guard down.  We take their words as Gospel-truth.  

This is especially dangerous when the White Lab Coat Syndrome kicks in.  Perhaps they stray from their area of expertise, but we trust them anyway, because they are our pastors, our teachers, our respected leaders.  Is there any area outside the realm of their expertise?

The reason I titled my post, “critical thinking in love,” is because I’m really good at the critical thinking part, it’s the ‘in love’ part that I have often neglected.  When I come across something that many seem to buy into, that a Christian leader has endorsed, that I believe to be in opposition to the Counsel of God’s Word, my gut reaction is adversarial, not loving.  It is a bad sin and deadly in the body of Christ where the world will know we are Christians by our love.  With God’s help, I am working on this.  

Instead, I should examine my own heart and motives and, if necessary, gently and lovingly point out the areas that do not hold up in light of Scripture.  The more I really see people as God’s, instead of seeing people as the sum of their opinions, the easier this will be.  

So, take this as an admonition to think critically about everything and when you find a flaw (and you certainly will find many, probably even in this post!), to approach people, when needed, with love.

Disclaimer: For all of you from BBC, I did not write this with Pastor John in mind, however, it applies as easily to him as any.