Is your church’s children’s ministry a holding room or a training facility?

In their book Creature of the Word, Matt Chandler, Josh Patterson and Eric Geiger explain the importance of teaching the gospel to children.

“Some children’s ministries are simply viewed as child care, which is most tragic when we understand the blessed vulnerability of children.  Why would we be content to provide child care while mom and dad, who are far less likely to realize their own weakness, are somewhere else being taught the Christian faith?  No, this is the time to lovingly melt the hearts of children with the good news of Jesus.  With children especially, we must help them see that the goal of the Commandments was much deeper than tweaked behavior.”

Anyone in a church leadership position, not just youth or children’s ministers, needs to consider whether or not they are simply keeping people busy until the next event on the calendar or if they are training them up as disciples.  Creature of the Word is a helpful resource for those who are committed to the latter.

The auditorium was packed, mostly with people who didn’t want to be there.

It was spiritual emphasis week at my small Bible college which meant that we were all required to spend pretty much every night that week listening to a guy give lectures about something spiritual.

On the last night of the week the speaker decided to start things off with a little review.  This would prove to be awkward for everyone in attendance.

And it was all my fault.

“What was our main point on Monday night?”

Hands shot up all over the place.

“Yes.  You way in the back, in the brown shirt.”

“Love God.”

“Good.  Very good.  And what about Tuesday night?  Anyone?”

Again, hundreds of eager hands popped up in the air.

“Okay.  You in the red dress.”

“Love others.”

“Excellent!”

Without giving it much thought, I told my friend Derrick that Doctrine of Integrity was the answer to the next question.  It wasn’t.  I just thought it would be funny to tell Derrick that it was.

My heart stopped when he raised his hand and the speaker called on him.

“Yes, you in the orange and blue shirt.”

“Doctrine of Integrity!”

Derrick seemed so proud to have the right answer.

“Excuse me?”

“Doctrine of…”

Derrick knew that he had been had but it was too late.  He was stuck.  He finished his answer with gibberish.

“What was that, son?”

“Forget it.”

It’s amazing that I was allowed to graduate from that school.  It’s even more amazing that Derrick kept being my friend.

A few years later Derrick and I were out with a bunch of friends.  When things started getting crazy, Derrick was the one that drove home with me, away from all of the drama, to watch TV.

When I found out that my mom died, I never asked Derrick to come to my house.  He didn’t let that or a ten hour drive stop him.  I’m glad.

When my firstborn son was about to be born, Derrick was at the hospital almost as fast as me and my wife.  When it was time for delivery, he was in the waiting room.  When the labor dragged on and things started to look bad, Derrick was still in the waiting room.  And he was there for the four minutes that nurses worked to get my newborn son to take his first breath.

My son made it out okay.  And a few years later, my second son came with a little less turbulence.  When they grow up, I hope that they have friends like my friend Derrick.

Friends they can laugh with.

Friends that will call them out when they are wrong.

Friends that are there for them.

He had a very concerned look on his face.

We had talked about this kind of thing before.  A lot.  This time was different.  He wasn’t going to settle for answers to his questions.  Something had to be done.  Now.

“Dad, I need to know how to repent of my sins and believe in Jesus.”

“Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the grave like we talked about?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, now you just ask.  Jesus told people to repent and believe in the gospel so you need to pray and ask him to forgive you of your sins.”

My son ran away into the woods to pray.

He came back a new creature.

This happened almost two years ago and I’ve wrestled against a temptation almost every day since then.  The temptation is to think that my job is over.  My kid has repented of his sins and put his faith in Christ.  One down, one to go.

Jesus’ last commandment in the Gospel of Matthew always brings me back to reality.

“Make disciples.”

This commandment is just as relevant for parents in the United States as it is for missionaries in China.

The day that my son became my brother was really the day that my work had just begun.  Jesus didn’t tell me to get my son to say a prayer.  He told me to make a disciple out of him.

This means that if I want him to live in total submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ like I pray for every night, I better be living in total submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ.  It means that along with telling him how important it is to love Jesus and others, I need to be showing him as well.  And later on in life, when our schedule gets more chaotic, I need to show him with my time that Jesus is more important than work, running, soccer and karate.

My son asked me the other day why we waited so long to baptize him after he became a follower of Jesus.  I explained how we were just taking our time to pray and watch.  My three-year-old son was listening and interrupted.

“Dad!  I don’t want to get dunked in water.”

My baby boy, the Presbyterian.

My oldest son stepped in to explain that once you become a Christian, getting dunked is no big deal except for the fact that, “you might miss a few songs during church.”

By the end of this explanation, my youngest son was convinced.

“I think I’ll be okay getting dunked.”

I pray that this conversation was a small vision of a future where both of my boys are my brothers in Christ.

But even when that day comes, my job will not be done.

My family was divided last week.

Soccer practice was at the same time as karate practice.

We planned on my wife taking my oldest son to karate while I took our youngest son to soccer.  The only problem with our otherwise brilliant plan was that my youngest son wanted his mom, not his dad, to take him to soccer.

It’s very humbling to hear your three-year-old son tell you that he’d rather you not go with him someplace.  As I saw it, my options were threefold.

1.  The Anger Option

“Well fine then, kid!  You can just walk to soccer practice. SMH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

2.  The Great Cave-In

“Whatever you want, son.  But I’ll be cheering you on, from a distance.”

3.  The Brick Wall

“Stop crying.  We’re going to soccer practice.”

I went with The Brick Wall option because I wanted my son to know that I love him, even when he doesn’t want me around.  I wanted him to know that true love isn’t something that can be switched on and off and that devotion isn’t practiced on our own terms.

Human history is littered with people’s attempts to enjoy God’s presence on their own terms.

Adam and Eve had perfect communion with God but tried to hide from him after they sinned (Genesis 3:8).

Jonah described himself as a Hebrew who feared the Lord (Jonah 1:9) even though he was on the run from that same Lord.  Only moments after uttering those words Jonah would try to kill himself just to avoid doing what God told him to do (Jonah 1:12).

Peter called Jesus, “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16) but denied that same Christ shortly before the crucifixion (John 18:25-27).

And today we love to hear sermons and songs about Jesus being with us “during the storm” or “through the journey” but we don’t much care for the idea of him being around when our most hated politician shows up on TV or our favorite team loses or the kids are going nuts.

We want God’s presence but we want it on our terms.

Thankfully, God’s grace is greater than our fickle devotion.

In Matthew 1:21-23, we see that Jesus came to earth with the promise that, “he will save his people from their sins” and that, “they shall call his name Immanuel (which means God with us).”

At the end of Matthew, after Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, he leaves his disciples with a similar word.

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:20

I wonder what Peter thought when he heard those words.  He had to have been amazed that the God whom he abandoned promised to never abandon him.

And that brings us to one of the most Satanic songs ever written.

God is watching us.  

God is watching us.  

God is watching us.

From a distance.

How sweet.  While we’re blowing each other up and dying of cancer, God is watching.  From far away.

Thankfully, the Bible gives us a different picture.

God has no interest in merely watching us from a distance, even if we think that’s what we want.  We may wish that we could avoid his presence but his grace will not allow that.

He promised Adam and Eve that a Savior would come to crush the serpent who deceived them (Genesis 3:15).

He refused to allow rebellious Jonah to die at the bottom of an ocean (Jonah 1:17).

He restored Peter by gently reminding him of true love, devotion and mission (John 21:15-19).

And he refuses to look the other way while we sinfully reject or ignore his presence.

Instead, he lovingly corrects us (Hebrews 12:1-11).

Just like a father to a son.

A father who is always present, no matter what.

“Is suicide the unpardonable sin?”

Since I’ve been a pastor, that’s the question that I’m most frequently asked.  Coming in at a close second is, “Do you think Obama is the AntiChrist?”  Rounding out the top three is, “Could you please not preach so loud.  Some of us are trying to sleep?”

Last Sunday I was visiting the nursing home with a group of men from my church.  While I was on my way to a room one of the nurses stopped me to introduce me to a resident that I had never seen before.

The lady was very old.  She had a Bible next to her in her wheelchair.  When I bent down to shake her hand she asked me about suicide being the unpardonable sin.  When I told her that it wasn’t she seemed relieved.  A little too relieved.  So I asked her if she was thinking about suicide.

“I was.”

A few days before, this lady heard a sermon that changed her mind.  The sermon was not preached by John Piper or Mark Driscoll.  No, the sermon she heard was from a man in my church who led a worship service at her nursing home.  It changed her life.  I guess you could even say that it saved her life.

God, in his grace, gives people big platforms for his glory.  Men like Daniel had significant influence among political leaders.  Charles Spurgeon pastored a huge church a long time ago and his words continue to help people today.  But God doesn’t just use people with big names.

For every Apostle Paul, there is at least one Ananias.

Ananias is the man that God told to go and pray over a man named Saul.

“Saul?  Are you sure, Lord?  I’ve heard about this guy before.  He doesn’t like my kind too much.”

“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15).

So Ananias went and did what God told him to do and nobody noticed.

Except Saul.

There are people of God all over the world who are like Ananias.  There’s the woman who will never speak to thousands of people at a conference but who loves Jesus, her husband and her kids.  And the faithful pastor of a tiny, struggling church who will never be asked for his thoughts about church growth.  But people like this, through obedience and faith, are being used by God to do great things.

We should rejoice for those who have been given big platforms and are using them for God’s glory.  We should also remember that most of us are called to be faithful in small ways that will never be noticed by the outside world or even our own friends.  But most likely, that small faithfulness will be noticed by someone.

Last week, my friend preached a sermon at a nursing home.  Nobody on the Internet or the evening news noticed it.  But one hurting woman did.  And Jesus was glorified.

He always is when his people obey.

Even in the small things.

The following conversation took place several years ago in a far away land.

“Hey, can I perform on your music show?”

“Can you sing?”

“I prefer whispering.”

“Can you play an instrument?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Well, it’s one that I invented.  It’s sort of a cross between a guitar, a bagpipe and a jack in the box.”

“Interesting.  What does it sound like?”

“Sort of like a cross between a guitar, a bagpipe and a jack in the box.”

“Great!  Be here tomorrow night at six.”

When I was in high school I was in a current events class where students debated each other.  One of the topics we discussed frequently was abortion.  Things kept coming back to the same essential question.

Is there a baby inside the mother’s womb or is there just a bundle of cells?

The implication was that it’s no big deal to do away with a bundle of cells.  At varying degrees, every human being kills cells everyday.  So then, what’s the big deal with abortion?  The task for those of us on the pro-life side of the debate was clear – prove that there was a baby, not just a mass of cells, inside of the mother’s womb.  Once that was established, the debate was over.  Nobody wants to kill a baby.

Those days are gone.

Today many mainstream supporters of abortion, including Vice President Joe Biden, admit that life begins at conception.  But the issue today is whether or not that life is precious.  Consider the words of Bill Maher from a recent radio interview.

Say what you will about Maher but his words here, as disturbing as they are, do an excellent job of highlighting the logical conclusion of the pro-death movement in this country.

“I’m just not one of those people who thinks all life is precious, you know.  I bet you a lot of people wouldn’t say that but if you’re pro-choice maybe that’s really what you’re thinking anyway.”

On the surface, Maher’s words may sound compassionate.  After all, isn’t it cruel to bring someone into this world who we know will face severe difficulties because of their disabilities?  Isn’t death much more humane?

However, when we dig beneath the surface of Maher’s argument, we see that this kind of thinking is anything but humane.  If it’s consistency that Maher is after, his argument forces him to admit that the life of an individual who was allowed to be born with Down’s Syndrome or a severe heart condition is, in fact, not precious.  And further, the parents who chose to let them live are cruel to allow another human being to live like that.

If only we could all be as compassionate as the doctors who perform abortions.

The Bible tells us that all humans are more than precious.  We are significant.  Not because of our superior genes or strong immune systems but because we are created in God’s image (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9).  Sick babies, Democrats, Republicans, celebrities and all other human beings carry the image of their Creator.

One of the first books I ever read to my son is Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who.  The book has nothing to do with abortion and I have no clue where Dr. Seuss stood on the subject.  But every time we sat down to read this book I thought about the culture of death that my son will grow up in.

In the story, Horton is an elephant that finds a speck of dust.  He discovers that an entire world exists on that tiny speck of dust so he does everything he can to protect it.  Naturally, his friends think that he’s crazy and try to destroy him and his speck.

As Horton defends his new friends on the tiny speck he keeps repeating, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

The story ends with Horton getting all of the people on the tiny speck to finally make enough noise so that his friends can hear and be convinced that there is life on that speck.  His plan works brilliantly and everyone is saved.

Today, many of our leaders have been convinced that there is life inside of the mother’s womb.  But that’s not enough.

Because for them, life just isn’t precious anymore.

My fourth anniversary as the pastor of Towaliga Baptist Church was on October 1 of this year.  If things work out, this Sunday a few of the guys in my church will wrap me in a scroll and carry me all around the church building.  You should come!

I’ve learned a lot in these four years.  Most of what I have learned serves as a reminder of how little I knew in seminary, despite the fact that I thought I knew practically everything.  In a lot of ways, seminary wasn’t about learning for me.  What’s to learn when you already know it all?  Instead, it was a place where I thought I could go to make a few connections before becoming the pastor of The First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills.

Things never worked out with The First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills and I couldn’t be happier.  Instead, I landed in rural middle Georgia at a church with a name I couldn’t pronounce.  I had to rethink everything I thought I knew about being missional.

For me, missional meant having a cup of coffee with the drummer from Coldplay while discussing the finer points of Reformed Theology.  It meant sitting at the popular table, in Jesus name, of course.

But in the community where I pastor, there are more catfish restaurants than coffee shops. Oh, and the drummer from Coldplay doesn’t live here or, if he did, he moved away.

But Franklin does live here.  And so do Reggie, Ellie, Betty, Tim, Newton, Stephen, Lee and a whole bunch of other people who allow me be their pastor.  They’ve been extremely patient with me as I’ve learned what it really means to be missional.

Being missional in my town means learning how to at least carry on a conversation about hunting and it means praying with widows who are battling cancer.

Before I became a pastor, I used words like missional as code for being cool or progressive or cutting edge.  Missional was about me and what I had to offer a church.  Now I’m learning that missional means leading my church in moving towards the people around us, in Jesus name.

A few days ago a friend told me about an alleged Christian in our town that told him, “There will be no blacks in my heaven.”  When I heard that, it reminded me that even small towns with a church on every corner need the gospel.  It also reminded me of the people that I get to pastor and how missional they really are.

Some of my people grew up under segregation but now they regularly go across town to deliver food in the housing projects because a lot of kids there don’t have anything to eat when they get home from school.  And they help tutor those same kids.  And next month they will sit down at the same table in the community center of the Jackson Housing Authority with those same kids and their families to share a Thanksgiving meal.

Being missional means eating turkey with people different than you are.

In Jesus name, of course.

The most annoying man in the room is the person who stops at nothing to prove how important he is.

Sometimes he does this by trying to tell a better story than you.

“I was at Starbucks yesterday and I saw Tom Hanks.”

“That’s nothing.  I was at Home Depot and Tom Hanks asked me to come help him build his new deck.”

Sometimes he does it by casting doubt on your facts.  In this approach, his sentence always starts with the word actually.

“Man, that Colonel Sanders sure makes some good chicken.”

“Actually, Colonel Sanders has been dead for a long time so he’s not the one that makes the chicken at KFC.”

And a lot of times this guy just wants to show the world that he’s better, tougher, more spiritual and funnier than you are.

“And that’s when the cop starting cussing at me for no good reason and then threatened to beat me before he drove off.”

“Well, if that would have been me, I would have told him a thing or two and then called my good friend, the governor of the state of Georgia.”

I’ve been guilty of all of these annoying tactics at different moments in my life but the last one is my real specialty.  I use the If That Would’ve Been Me Phrase a lot.

Mostly when I read the Bible.

It all started when I was a kid in Sunday School learning about Adam and Eve.  I convinced myself that, had I been in Adam’s place, I would have refused the snake’s offer just before killing him with my own two hands.  Sanders saves the universe!

If that would’ve been me.

Last week I started preparing to preach through the book of Jonah and it happened again.  I thought about what I would do if I was in Jonah’s place.  Of course, I would do what God told me to do.  No need for a great fish.

If that would have been me.

But in reality, I’m just like Jonah.  I run away like Jonah did every time I disobey God.  Failure to love my wife like Jesus loved the church, failure to raise up my sons in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and shying away from leading the church where God has placed me are all attempts to jump a ship headed for Tarshish.

If that would’ve been me, I would’ve would’ve gone to Tarshish too.

But Jesus didn’t.

Jonah refused to go to Nineveh because it was an enemy city.  He could get killed.  Jesus obeyed his Father and came to his enemies (Romans 5:6-8), knowing that he would get killed (Matthew 1:21).

Jonah ran from the idea of having anything to do with the unclean people of Nineveh.  His hatred kept him from obeying.  Jesus ran towards the unclean people of earth (Ephesians 2:1-3).  His obedience came from his love for his Father and the world (John 3:16; 17).

Jonah’s story is not included in the Bible so that I can feel better about myself by thinking about what I would have done if I was in his position.  And it’s not in the Bible just so that I can get down on myself, always being reminded of my frequent flyer mileage to Tarshish.  It’s there so that I can see Jesus.  A man who obeyed his Father, even to the point of death (Philippians 2:5-11), by laying down his life for me, the most annoying man in the room.

“I can’t believe that they’re showing this on TV.”

My parent’s generation said that when there was partial nudity on NYPD Blue or another Saturday Night Live skit went a little too far.

Times have changed.  Now I use this phrase but not when something obscene comes on TV.  Instead, when I come across something remotely honest and noble, something not involving real housewives or girls named Honey Boo Boo, I go into a state of shock.

That happened last week.

I usually reserve this spot on Mondays for some ridiculous video about monkeys riding on dogs or robots that talk funny.  This isn’t one of those videos.  This one tells the story of a man who learned to love someone that he once wanted to kill.