Category: Evangelism

Tim Keller on Underadapting to Culture

~ Bob Hayton ~ 7 Comments

Tim Keller is one of leading voices in church planting today. He has thought long and hard about how to do gospel ministry in today’s urban contexts, and is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a thriving ministry in the heart of New York City. Redeemer has helped mentor other church planters in New York and beyond through Redeemer City to City, a ministry which has helped launch over 200 churches in 35 global cities so far.

Keller’s latest book is Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Zondervan, 2012) which is a manual for how to think about doing church. His aim is to explain how “theological vision,” as distinct from doctrine or methodology, should drive how we bring the message of the gospel to the communities we are called to serve. Just from reading through the introductory chapter, I know I am going to want to read through this manual in depth—highlighter in hand. Keller uses diagrams and sidebars, and yes, even some footnotes, to present his information in an understandable format. And what he has to say is definitely worth hearing. He talks about the inevitability of contextualizing and chides preachers who don’t intentionally think through how their church must speak to the culture around them.

This post is not going to be a full review. I’ll save that for after I’ve had time to examine this work at length. Instead I want to focus in on an excerpt from the introduction on how the Church should adapt to culture. As a former independent fundamental Baptist (IFB), I read these words with great interest:

We will show [in this book] that to reach people we must appreciate and adapt to their culture, but we must also challenge and confront it. This is based on the biblical teaching that all cultures have God’s grace and natural revelation in them, yet they are also in rebellious idolatry. If we overadapt to a culture, we have accepted the culture’s idols. If, however, we underadapt to a culture, we may have turned our own culture into an idol, an absolute. If we underadapt to a culture, no one will be changed because no one will listen to us; we will be confusing, offensive, or simply unpersuasive. To the degree a ministry is overadapted or underadapted to a culture, it loses life-changing power. (pg. 24, emphasis added)

I think there is a wealth of wisdom in this brief except. I particularly appreciated the section that I bolded. This seems to be the case with most conservative IFB churches I know. By and large, the wider culture looks at them with bewilderment. Their version of Christianity—complete with Stoic worship, an archaic Bible and outdated fashion—is totally foreign to the average citizen in the community. And the churchly phrases and Christian lingo confuse the message even more.

In a later section in the book, Keller talks of Anglo Christians who are “often culturally clueless”:

They don’t see any part of how they express or live the gospel to be “Anglo”—it is just the way things are. They feel that any change in how they preach, worship, or minister is somehow a compromise of the gospel. In this they may be doing what Jesus warns against—elevating the “traditions of men” to the same level as biblical truth (Mark 7:8). This happens when one’s cultural approach to time or emotional expressiveness or way to communicate becomes enshrined as the Christian way to act and live. (pg. 96)

Keller goes on to discuss how our culture shapes our view of individualism and community. He also decries how church planters or missionaries tend to reproduce the cultural methodology of ministries that have impacted them.

If they have been moved by a ministry that has forty-five-minute verse-by-verse expository sermons, a particular kind of singing, or a specific order and length to the services, they reproduce it down to the smallest detail. Without realizing it, they become method driven and program driven rather than theologically driven. They are contextualizing their ministry expression to themselves, not to the people they want to reach. (pg. 97, emphasis added)

Keller’s point should not be ignored. While we must not overadapt to culture and compromise the gospel, we nevertheless have a responsibility to analyze the culture we find ourselves in and seek to communicate in such a way, that the offense that arises in response to our teaching, is an offense directed at the gospel itself, and not our own idiosyncrasies and cultural traditions.

I recommend that pastors and church leaders everywhere pick up a copy of this important book from Tim Keller. The book is carefully written and the principles are clearly explained. Even if you disagree with some of what he has to say, his book will provide an opportunity to systematically walk through all of the issues related to doing ministry in a given culture. If we recognize that some sort of “theological vision” exists and undergirds what we do, then focusing on what that vision is and how it is developed will have lasting impact in how we do church in the twenty-first century.

You can learn more about Center Church at Zondervan’s Engaging Church Blog this week or from CenterChurch.com. You can see a book excerpt or watch a video trailer at Westminster Bookstore’s product page. Pick up a copy of the book at any of the following retailers: Monergism Books, Westminster Bookstore, Christianbook.com, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or direct from Zondervan.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Zondervan. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

Book Briefs: “The Gospel According to Isaiah 53” edited by Darrell L. Bock and Mitch Glaser

~ Bob Hayton

Perhaps no chapter in the Old Testament is more foundational to the cause of Jewish evangelism than Isaiah 53. In The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Encountering the Suffering Servant in Jewish and Christian Theology editors Darrell L. Bock and Mitch Glaser bring together an impressive group of scholars to discuss this text in full detail. The result is an academic work that aims to equip church leaders for effectively using this pivotal chapter in Jewish evangelism.

The book is divided into three sections. Part 1 coves Christian and Jewish interpretations of Isaiah 53. These first two chapters were most informative and really are worth the price of the book. Richard Averbeck surveys a wide variety of Christian interpretations, and Michael Brown masterfully gives a thorough treatment of Jewish opinions on this passage.

Part 2 is a collection of various essays on Isaiah 53 and is the weakest part of the book in my opinion. The essays themselves are fine, but there is repetition and disparity between them. Most of them spend some time discussing whether the Suffering Servant is collectively understood as Israel or should be viewed as an individual Messianic figure. These essays are written independently and not situated in the flow of the book well, so we cover the same ground over and over again. That being said, the articles do make some important points and cover different points of emphases when it comes to Isaiah 53’s development in the New Testament.

Part 3 covers Isaiah 53 in practical theology and is quite good. Mitch Glaser’s piece on using Isaiah 53 in Jewish Evangelism is excellent. His explanation of orthodox Jewish objections to Isaiah 53’s use by Christians as opposed to the average Jewish person’s more secular outlook to the passage is priceless. Too often, we assume that Jews think like Christians when it comes to God’s holiness and personal sin, blood atonement and the like, and Glaser assures us this is not the case.

The book ends with an odd concluding chapter, in which Darrell Bock excerpts several paragraphs from each of the chapters in the book. It seems a strange way to conclude a book, but I wonder if it is an attempt to forge a greater unity between disparate pieces? An appendix then includes two sample sermons on Isaiah 53.

The book points us to numerous additional resources throughout, and really does cover Isaiah 53 well. It definitely accomplishes the task it sets out to achieve. Yet the book is clearly directed toward a more scholarly audience and I believe this will limit its effectiveness. There are no transliterations of Hebrew and Greek terms provided, and sometimes there are not even short lexical definitions of them included either. The interaction with scholarly literature, too, is much more than the average lay leader is equipped to handle. Still there is a lot of value to be had in the book, and I was thankful to be reminded of how important this single chapter is for Jewish evangelism.

Pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Westminster Bookstore, Christianbook.com, Amazon, or direct from Kregel.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Kregel Academic. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.

About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.

Darren Carlson on Doing Short Term Missions Right

~ Bob Hayton

Summer is the peak time for Short Term Missions Trips, it seems. I recall my home church packing a van full of teenagers and heading for Mexico. These trips, whether to Mexico, the Caribbean or beyond, are part of American church culture. And as Americans, we think these trips really matter and are a big help to the foreign fields.

Darren Carlson, president of Training Leaders International, begs to differ. In a hard-hitting series of articles posted at The Gospel Coalition blog, he challenges many commonly-held assumptions about short term missions. They often do lasting damage to the very places they were hoping to help. If not done well, they can be a burden to missionaries and national pastors alike.

Rather than just critiquing and poking the American short term missions bubble, Carlson goes on to point out a path toward improved short term cross-cultural ministry. He encourages churches to think local first, and to partner with foreign pastors and missionaries closely on any international ventures. Manual labor is often counter-productive, when locals could be employed to help build that church or fix the school.

I can’t say more than what Darren has spelled out in this series. I just want to encourage you to take time and consider reading these articles — especially if you are a pastor or in charge of such missions trips for your church. Don’t just repeat the past, think carefully about how to make such trips truly have lasting impact.

The articles are linked below:

An IFB Pastor’s Ugly, UnChristian Comments on Homosexuality

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC caused a national uproar over his recent comments on homosexuality. I get the feeling that this news story is only going to get bigger.

Here’s a summary of his comments in a sermon on May 13, where he is reacting to President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage:

I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it pass the Congress – build a great big large fence, 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.

And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. If a man ever has a young’un, praise God he will be the first.

–see the youtube video clip included in this article

The pastor is not backing down, and the next Sunday apparently, his congregation was in full attendance with 100 visitors and supporters from the surrounding area. Oh, and there was the massive protest outside from gay rights groups and sympathizers as well.

In fact, one of the church members has gone on record saying that gays are worthy of death.

Let me be clear, this disgusts me. These comments are ugly, uncaring and downright unChristian. And these comments don’t help anyone. They infuriate the homosexuals (understandably), and they give credence to the idea that the Church hates homosexuals, period. Where is the grace? And how are homosexuals to be wooed to Christ with such a hate-filled message.

Someone has also unearthed a 1978 message with Worley declaring that forty years ago, gays would be hanging from a white oak tree. Underlying the words that Worley uses, seems to be a belittling of gays and homosexuals and a feeling that he is better than they are. And one could even read hate into all this – and homosexuals will justifiably see it that way.

Most conservative Christians like me, decry these statements and distance ourselves from them. But some of the recent discussions at SharperIron here and here, sadly show that many basically support this pastor’s message.

There are numerous articles available online discussing Pastor Worley’s anti-gay message and I won’t provide them all here. I just want to explain why I think he is so wrong.

The Old Testament laws against homosexuality teach us that it is immoral, just as much as the laws against sex outside of marriage do, as well. But the corporal punishment and the death penalty was broadly applied in ancient Israel to a number of crimes including homosexuality. And it is wrong to extrapolate from these old laws that God wants homosexuals to be killed today. In fact in 1 Cor. 6, the Scripture says that some of the Christians in Corinth were formerly homosexulas and that they had been washed, cleansed and sanctified – and certainly weren’t worthy of death.

Jesus Christ and his death on the cross took the full punishment of all the coporal punishment-worthy crimes in the Old Testament law. And Jesus’ message of hope and forgiveness through the Gospel is given to all who believe. The Church is spread through persuasion and love, not coercion and the sword.

We should love and welcome homosexuals as fallen sinners (like us all). Their struggles with sin are real and difficult, not to be easily dismissed out of hand. But they must forsake their sin and come to the foot of the cross for forgiveness and healing – just like all of us need to as well.

I encourage you to read my reviews of the following two books for a fuller picture of my take on homosexuality and a Bible-based, sympathetic view that sees the practice as morally wrong, but upholds those who are homosexual as people in God’s image in need of a loving Savior.