Tag: insights

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Jacob the Pervert is Changed By God’s Grace.

Genesis 49:31 Rocked my world today.  Mouse over the verse to read it.  It’s not all that spectacular.  It’s a description of a graveyard, and who is buried there.

What rocked my world is what it didn’t say.  The guy speaking is Israel (formerly known as Jacob).  Stick with me, and I’ll give you the back story in 3 bullet points (with a hat-tip to Tim Keller’s insight from his latest book).

  • Jacob was a total perve who had the hots for Rachel, Leah’s younger sister.
  • Laban, the girls’ dad, was a con-man who tricked Jacob into working for him for 14 years in order to get Rachel as a wife.  7 years in he got tricked into marrying Leah, who according to the story is ugly (commentators believe she had a lazy eye or was cross-eyed). Lines from the 14 year period include “OK, time for me to have sex with that hot daughter of yours.” (did I mention Jacob was a perve?)
  • Leah spends the rest of her life in the shadow of her younger, hotter sister–trying to make Jacob love her.  She names her first three kids “Look! A son,” “God heard my prayer,” and “Now I’ll be connected to him,” (Genesis 29:31-35) all in an effort to win the love of Jacob, or at least in an expression of that effort.  Finally, we see her surrender to God’s grace, and name her last son “Praise the Lord.”

But what we never hear from the story is whether or not God’s grace ever changes Jacob.  Until Genesis 49:31.  When giving instructions as to where he wanted to be buried.  He in effect says “Bury me where Grandpa Abraham, Grandma Sarah, Dad, Mom, and Leah are buried.  The significance of that is huge.  God had so changed Jacob (now Israel)’s heart that his last wish was to be buried not with Rachel, who had her own tomb (Genesis 35:19-20), but with Leah.

God changes hearts.  Leah’s last son’s name, Judah, might sound familiar.  The “Lion of Judah,” Jesus himself, is a descendant of Leah.  Praise God for grace that changes us.

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What if Raising Support IS My Ministry?

I’m so quick to let heresy come out of my mouth.

The other day on a support appointment I said “We can’t wait to report to our assignment and start doing ministry!” What a shame, that I would further the unfortunate stereotype that to challenge someone to worship with their wallet is somehow different from challenging students to worship with their lives.

Raising support is a ministry.  We are seeing God change the hearts of countless folks toward our ministry.  Even if folks aren’t able to give, the ministry we have in their life is reminding them that God is bigger than the economy or the news networks.  We so greatly appreciate those who would sacrifice and continue to give in such a crazy, uncertain financial world.  Your heart is clearly resting in Christ, as evidenced by the clear, consistent placement of your treasure in causes so close to His heart.

I have to continually remind myself that my only duty as a slave of Christ is to follow his bidding.  Though my heart beats to reach college students with the gospel, (and I firmly believe that God is passionate about that cause) right now he would have me reach others with the true “prosperity gospel,” that real prosperity comes not from money or worldly security, but from Christ.  In calling people to partner with us financially, I am calling them to a radical position where we collectively recognize that God is not about our financial bottom line.

With this particular ministry of challenging folks to financial partnership, I need to be so careful that I don’t totally blow it by my financial lifestyle speaking louder than my words.  A tragedy of American Christianity is that pastors and leaders who would claim to be honoring God are falling prey to the same greed and consumerism to which the watching world is enslaved.  We need to have a wartime mentality toward our spending and lifestyle.  I’d highly recommend all folks (and especially vocational ministers) read the new introduction (link downloads a pdf file) to John Piper’s book “Let the Nations Be Glad,” as it was the stimulus to rocking my world, this morning.

So I repent of my heresy.  I am doing ministry when I make phone calls to develop financial partners.  Right now, today, I am in full-time ministry.

What about you?  In what ways have you allowed heresy to infect your view of God’s call on your life? Comment below.

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When Would I Tell You to Stop Supporting Our Ministry?

Check out Exodus 36:2-7.  And take notes.

I was blown away by two things:

  1. The people were so committed that they gave more than enough.
  2. The workers were so committed they told them it was more than enough, and to stop giving.

I wrestled this morning with the point at which I would tell folks to stop giving to my ministry.  Then I wrestled with the difference between the old covenant and the new in this regard.  See, in the old covenant, it was a “come and see” issue.  Folks from other nations came to see the favor God had bestowed on the Israelites.  The tabernacle, and later the temple, were places where the nations looked on in amazement at the glory of the only living God, Yahweh.

That changed in the new covenant.  Now the faith is a “go and tell” issue.  The gospel is to be taken out, proclaimed among the nations.  We are the temple.  And we show the glory of God not by how lavishly we live, but by how we no longer need riches to define us.  The nations see the glory of God in the face of Christ, who sacrificed his very life for his enemies.  That sacrificial giving of time, resources, and our very life is our new model of glorifying God.

So how does that affect the “more than enough” issue?  In the old covenant, once the tabernacle was finished, there was no longer a need for that specific type of giving.  In the new covenant, we never finish showing off the true and living tabernacle, this side of eternity.  Like giving to a war effort, you don’t stop making bullets until the war is over.

So I’ll never stop asking you to give to our ministry, until the war for the hearts and minds of students is over.  But I’ll also never stop repenting of the lie that finances are the point.  Jesus is the point. That’s what is so dangerous about prosperity theology.  We make the mistake of old covenant thinking (look how big the house/car/Rolex is that Jesus blessed me with!) without the wisdom to see that we live in the war-time mentality of the new covenant.  And nobody wears their Rolex to battle.

The hero of Exodus 36 is not the people who gave so much, or the workers who told them to stop, but the God who graciously revealed himself to hard-hearted people.  The tabernacle made of fine linen had nothing on the God-man who came and “tabernacled” with his people.

What about you, are you living in the war-time mentality or do you, like me, often fall prey to the old covenant way of thinking? Comment below.

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Building the Kindgom Using the Devil’s Tools?

Derek Webb’s album Ringing Bell has been ringing in my ears today.

I got an email through our ministry locator from a minister promoting an upcoming event.  It’s not a Campus Crusade affiliated event, as evidenced by the fact that I got alerted about it via our ministry locator.  The locator is a tool specifically designed to connect students, parents, and ministry partners with the ministry at specific schools.  It’s not a way to get in touch with staff to promote events.

So here’s how it goes:  excited minister wants to get the word out to as many people as possible about the upcoming event.  Knowing that Campus Crusade for Christ has thousands of campuses nationwide, and that we love Jesus, he decides to directly contact some staff through the ministry locator and let them know about the event.  Sounds reasonable, right?

But let’s change the scenario a bit.  Imagine instead of a ministry, it’s a taco business. Excited business owner wants to get the word out to as many people as possible about the upcoming event.  Knowing that Taco Bell has a way to directly contact franchises around the world, he sets about telling them about the event.

Sounds a little different if you paint it with a different brush.  See, whether you spiritualize it or not, using our ministry locator tool to promote events is spam.  Unsolicited email.  Illegal.

Now, I’m not going to report the guy and have him fined or penalized, because I’m relatively certain he didn’t mean to spam us, and unlike the taco example, we are not competing businesses.  We’re on the same team, looking to reach people with the gospel.  We’re about God’s kingdom advancing.

The question is whether or not you can advance the kingdom using non-kingdom resources.  Since spam is illegal, it therefore is not a tool God is likely going to favor in the building of his kingdom.

How you get the people to your event is just as important as how many people you get to your event.  Shortcuts, fudging numbers, and emotional manipulation might produce a throng of people who look very Christian at your event.  But it won’t honor God.  As Christians, we must go the extra mile to not just avoid guilt in these types of things, but because others have abused people, we have to avoid even the appearance of that abuse.

Since some online lines are still legally blurry, let’s make a commitment to stay well on the legal side of the blur.

That’s what’s got Derek’s song ringing in my ears.  His song “A Love That’s Stronger Than Our Fear” has a line in it that speaks to “building the kingdom using the devil’s tools.”  We have to watch out for the American lie that ends justify means.  Biblically speaking, questionable means condemn their ends, regardless of how “good” they appear.

What do you think?  Did I overreact?  What are some other ways we can strive to be full of integrity?  Comment Below.

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Tips for Online Ministry.

One of the reasons I am joining Campus Crusade’s regional team is to help staff and students in our region who have a felt need to be effective in online ministry, but lack the tools to do so.  I’m by no means an expert, but one of my goals is to become just that over the next few years.

From time to time, I’ll post about some tips that I have picked up and found useful.

By far the most powerful aspect of the internet is immediacy.  It all happens in (to use a buzzword) real-time.  That can be a huge help to online ministry (5 minutes until the start of the weekly meeting!  See you there!) or a huge problem (the Campus Crusade freshmen are rappelling off of the science building drinking beer! here’s a YouTube video I uploaded from my phone!).

One of the best things you can do is to always be aware of what is being said about you, online.  Twitter, for example, is tremendously searchable.  I have a constant running search for anytime someone says my name, the name of my ministry, or one of a few other topics in which I am interested.  It allows me to see as they are saying it what they are saying.  And it takes zero effort after initial setup.  I use Tweetdeck and have a column set up for each search.  (I spend maybe 3 minutes a day scanning the searches.)

The other thing that I’ve found indispensable is the use of Google Alerts.  Google might not own the internet, but they’re the sheriff with the biggest gun.  The ability they have over at Google to know what is being said online would make most of us wear tin-foil hats if we thought about it for very long.  I’ve chosen instead to harness that power.  A Google Alert is a once-a-day email (you can set them to whatever interval you’d like) that tells you any time someone says certain words or phrases online.  The power here is that the searches are magnificently customizable. For example, my friend Jeff Hardy might want to search to see what is being said about him online.  But he happens to share the name of a famous wrestler.  Google Alerts would allow him to exclude instances of Jeff Hardy that also contain “wrestler” on the same page.

In ministry, it always seems that half the battle is misconception.  Students think we have an agenda, or that we are insincere, or that we are ignorant and uninformed.  One of the ways the internet can help is by being able to speak directly to those who are spreading those malicious rumors and falsehoods.  You can put out the fire before it becomes too big.  Imagine spending the majority of our ministry energy on things like evangelism, discipleship, and training, instead of dealing with problems that could have been dealt with early and swiftly!

Have you found other ways to hear what is being said about you online?  Comment below.

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