I remember reading Dr. Don Whitney’s book on the spiritual disciplines a few years past.  I stumbled across an unusual chapter titled, Evangelism.  My first thought was, “This is out of place!”  However, after reading his comments and further investigating the Word, I discovered there is absolutely no difference in practicing evangelism as a spiritual discipline as to prayer or solitude.  After all, spiritual disciplines are the means to bring us to God and what greater encounter with the Holy God than to faithful proclaim who He is and what He has done to an individual or group of people who need to hear?  If evangelism is a necessary spiritual discipline, this implies that we should hold one another accountable.  Therefore, let’s add to the weekly routine of questions with your accountability group, men’s prayer breakfast, etc., “With whom did you share this week?”

I recently taught a class on Classical Education among Asian Communists.  Their response was very interesting.  One would suspect that they have never been exposed to such a theory/philosophy of education prior to this class.

What is Classical Education and why would it be beneficial for our children?  I have been pondering the answers to these two questions for some time.  I will attempt to answer them in two different posts.  Therefore, let’s wrestle with the former. 

 Classical Education is defined by three places Jerusalem, Rome, and Greece.  Each of these geographical locations has provided us with tremendous benefits in life, education and most profoundly with our relationship with God.  Jerusalem simply marks the sphere of education that American public schools have deemed anti-intellectual.  It is the foundational stone of God and without this rock, our logic and rhetoric is blindly misled.  Rome is the epicenter for government, militia and praxis.  Greece is the marketplace of logic.  With these three, Classical education has followed a child’s stage of development and offered the trivium or three-fold method of learning. 

First, the Grammar stage (7 years to 12 years) is when rote memorization plays an astronomical role in the life of your child.  Children learn an insurmountable amount of information, retain it, and are able to recite it.  This is the stage where we should immerse our child’s mind with facts and truth.  Such subjects that are taught would be Greek and Latin.  They are to memorize vocabulary, sentence structures, etc.  They will also be able to do mathematical computations.  However, they will be very limited in how to relate these truths, but that is accomplished at the next stage of learning.

Second, the Logic stage (12-15 years) is when children begin to think analytically.  At this juncture, a child will instinctively ask, “Why?”  As responsible teachers/parents we need to train our children “how” to think and “how” to reason responsibly for the glory of God. 

Third, the Rhetoric stage (15-18 years) is when children think abstractly.  Children should learn subjects that train them how to communicate effectively and how to clearly articulate their own ideas in a convincing manner. 

In sum, these three learning stages develop as follows: the Grammar stage will enable a student to know the facts (i.e. they will know the who, what, when of George Washington without any prompting); the Logic stage will equip the student with the ability to translate those facts through reason (i.e. they will not only know that God created the world, but why He created the world through reasoning); the Rhetoric stage will instill in the student the mind to formulate, compose and express their own ideas (i.e. this is where they can adequately apologize for the faith in which they memorized and logically reasoned from Scripture). 

In a very short post, this is the “what” of Classical Education.  Please, I ask for your thoughts thus far.

Why is it that so many churches in America are failing to reach the lost with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ?  Why are many our churches declining?  I know that there are many issues that can be addressed related to this topic, but I only want to make a few brief comments and would appreciate any discussion. 

1.  I think that our churches are filled with lost people; therefore, lost people have no desire to reach lost people.

2.  Once we lead a person to Jesus Christ and they repent of their sins, trust Jesus as Lord and Sovereign for their life, we must continue with them in an authentic discipleship relationship.  The ‘ole cliche rings true, “We are called to make disciples not converts!”

3.  I think many of our leaders are abdicating their responsibilities to faithfully teach and exposit the Word of God.  Rather, many are offering wonderfully alliterated acroustics that attract all and anyone.  Seriously, we need more truth!

4.  I think we have tamed the tiger in the soul of new followers.  Roland Allen commented on this in his book entitled Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.  He said,

This is the instinctive force which drives men even at the risk of life itself to impart of others a new-found joy; that is why it is proverbially difficult to keep a secret.  It is not surprising then that when Christians are scattered and feel solitary this craving for fellowship should demand an outlet, especially when the hope of the Gospel and the experience of its power is something new and wonderful….The Spirit of Christ is a Spirit who longs for, and strives after, the salvation of the souls of men, and that Spirit dwells in them.  That Spirit converts the natural instinct into a longing for the conversion of others which is indeed divine in its source and character.

 Let’s rally together for the sake of the Gospel and faithfully declare to the lost people whom we contact this amazing secret that they never heard! 

 

Next Monday, January 21, 2008, America will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  January 15, 1929 Dr. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia and in his brief 39 years, he made insurmountable advancements for all humankind.  Our family sat and watched his I Have a Dreamspeech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in 1963.  I can honestly confess, each time I listen to this proclamation my heart is stirred with joy over the progress made and saddened that racism occasionally peeps its sordid head. 

Tonight, I taught a class on Dr. King to blow the trumpet of human dignity and the love for all nations and peoples.  Eli Weisel said, “those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”  Two things I want to clearly articulate.  One, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not perfect.  But no person in the world is perfect, except the Lord Jesus Christ.  Two, we need to put the cause of Dr. King at the forefront of the celebration and loose any embittered, selfish, prejudicial attitudes lurking in our souls.

Click here to listen and/or read the speech.

I am currently reading Family Driven Faithby Voddie Baucham, Jr.  It is a must readfor every family.  I’m sure to comment in future posts concerning thoughts that stem from this book and author.  Needless to say, I am a big fan of Voddie’s work!

Our family is immersed in a culture that often neglects their God-given responsibility of parenting children.  In a place where familyis supposedly such an integral part of everyday life, this basic relational unit is deteriorating as fast as the west.  Parents want to place their children in an elementary boarding school and pick them up on the weekend, let the grandparents guide the child’s life, and completely abdicate their role as authority and parent.  This is a global epidemic.  This is not an isolated problem of the west but anywhere God’s name and glory are not cherished, the dynamic of God’s created order of human relationships as defined by a family will diminish. 

Voddie comments on one father who adamantly took the initiative to see his son excel in sports.  He never missed a game and was consistently involved himself in his son’s life.  However, his son left the faith once he went to college.  He stopped attending church, his grades were falling drastically, he began drinking and was tested for drugs and was caught using steroids.  He was suspended from the baseball team.  His father pulled him out of this four-year school and put him in a local community college.  The father was dumbfounded as to why his son would falter.  Read Voddie’s response:

However, when I asked whether or not he led his son (and his family) in worship, his only response was, ‘I never even thought about it’….In other words, this man had spent countless hours and immeasurable amounts of energy teaching his son how to be a ballplayer, but hadn’t done a thing to teach him how to be a Christian.  When I pressed him on this issue, he said, ‘I thought the youth pastor was doing a good job of that.’ 

What are we doing to rear God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated sons and daughters of God?  Let’s first begin with repentance.  Second, let’s look to the Word (i.e. Deuteronomy 6) and take our roles as father’s and parents seriously.  Third, lets do whatever it takes to raise sons and daughters who walk with God. 

Click on this site for a daily God-centered Gospel truth!  I pray these words would resound in our soul and cause us to magnify God more and more.  John Piper writes in The Pleasures of God:

The gospel is the good news that God is the all-satisfying end of all our longings, and that even though he does not need us, and is in fact estranged from us because of our God-belittling sins, he has, in the great love with which he loved us, made a way for sinners to drink at the river of his delights through Jesus Christ.

And we will not be enthralled by this good news unless we feel that he was not obligated to do this. He was not coerced or constrained by our value. He is the center of the gospel. The exaltation of his glory is the driving force of the gospel. The gospel is a gospel of grace! And grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.

While reading Justin Taylor’s blog, this article caught my eye.  I love Spurgeon and then after reading the article, to my wonderful delight, he quoted and commended Helmut Thielicke, one of my favorite theologians/pastors!!! Here is the article for your enjoyment!

Please, take time to read this article!  I won’t add or take away because it is exaclty what we all need!  Here is the link.

Well, Mississippi won first place with 30 percent of adults ranking as obese.  The Southern United States is the fatest in the country.  But this article by Fox News is a step in the right direction.  It just compels me to see the necessity for Christians to kill our fleshly desires and passions for food or drink or alcohol.  We must dig deep, real deep to see our hunger.  The hunger is inate in every human being.  King Solomon in Ecclesiates says God put eternity in every human heart.  Our souls long, pant (as David said) for satisfaction.  The problem is that we are filling the soul with idols!  As the articles declares for Mississippi and the entire United States for that matter, we are fat!  The newest diet fad will not provide the cure that we so desperately need!  This life is war!  We cannot idly sit by and ignore this sin issue.  We must first recognize the war, identify what the problem is (worshiping things other than God) idolatry and adultery, find the solution (Jesus Christ through the means of spiritual disciplines), and get after it! 

My cousin mentioned to me something about eating disorders.  This is precisely the same issue!  It is sin.  It is rooted in a desire.  It is a desire for something other than God.  It is idolatry and/or adultery.  We are creating or constructing something to worship and for our souls to feast on (i.e. too much food, appearance, etc.).  People don’t do things because they hate them.  We do things because we like it!  The cure is not found it quick fixes or self help books.  The only cure for the soul is God! 

So how do we break this done practically?  Great question!  First, the person needs the work of regeneration, which is only given through the Spirit.  Second, the person needs help (i.e. another God-centered counselor/friend to give them godly wisdom and counsel that is only found in the Word).  Third, they need to practice the spirtual disciplines (i.e. reading/meditating on the Word, praying, fasting, evangelizing, solitude, etc.).  I would highly recommend anything from the Christian Counsel and Education Foundation.  However, particulary poignant to this conversation is Ed Welch’s book Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave : Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel.  As Welch said, “We will worship our own desires or we will worship God.” 

This article is a challenge not just for Americans in general but for Christians in particular.  We say we love God and yearn to glorify Him with our souls but our physical bodies fail miserably.  I would say that more Christians need to put their Bible where their fork is and feed their malnourished souls with the Bread of Life rather than the current obesity-driven, consumption-saturated meals and snacks we devor each day.  I’m convinced we need to start preaching about the sin of obesity and other adictive behaviors that stem from filling our souls with pleasures other than God!  Enough said, here is the article.