Young people rejecting “cool” Christianity

One man openly writes about the “perils of wannabe cool Christianity”:

“Increasingly, the “plan” has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called “the emerging church”—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too “let’s rethink everything” radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate Christianity’s image and make it “cool”—remains.

There are various ways that churches attempt to be cool. For some, it means trying to seem more culturally savvy. The pastor quotes Stephen Colbert or references Lady Gaga during his sermon, or a church sponsors a screening of the R-rated “No Country For Old Men.” For others, the emphasis is on looking cool, perhaps by giving the pastor a metrosexual makeover, with skinny jeans and an $80 haircut, or by insisting on trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed materials. Then there is the option of holding a worship service in a bar or nightclub (as is the case for L.A.’s Mosaic church, whose downtown location meets at a nightspot called Club Mayan).

“Wannabe cool” Christianity also manifests itself as an obsession with being on the technological cutting edge. Churches like Central Christian in Las Vegas and Liquid Church in New Brunswick, N.J., for example, have online church services where people can have a worship experience at an “iCampus.” Many other churches now encourage texting, Twitter and iPhone interaction with the pastor during their services.

But one of the most popular—and arguably most unseemly—methods of making Christianity hip is to make it shocking. What better way to appeal to younger generations than to push the envelope and go where no fundamentalist has gone before? . . .

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that “cool Christianity” is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

via The Perils of Hipster Christianity and Why Young Evangelicals Reject Churches That Try To Be Cool – WSJ.com.

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Sola Scriptura and SCAN!

My daughter presented her report last night to our church on her year-long training at the Master’s Mission.  She shared that the biggest lesson that she learned this year was Sola Scriptura–that the Scripture alone is sufficient for all of life!  That’s a great lesson to learn.

Justin Taylor gave a handy way for us to remember the key attributes of Scripture– just put them in the order of S.C.A.N.:

• the Sufficiency of Scripture
• the Clarity of Scripture
• the Authority of Scripture, and
• the Necessity of Scripture

Read the rest of the post for a helpful explanation of what each one of these characteristic mean.  It’s really worth your time.

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Admonitions to fathers and/or workaholics

Every dad ought to read (and probably bookmark and read about every month or two) this post by Mark Priestap at Desiring God.  Here’s an excerpt from the beginning.

Allow me to speak personally for a moment about a sin that long festered in my life: forsaking the means of grace in my home, sacrificing them on the altar of vocational work.

In my profession, it is customary to work long hours to meet deadlines (often multiple overlapping deadlines). And since the work is not back-breaking labor, it is easy to slowly get entangled in it until I find that I have spent an entire year working such long hours that I have forsaken the first things God has called me to, namely prayer, meditation, scripture memorization and study, instructing my wife and children, knowing their infirmities, and bearing with them in daily struggles.

God has plainly shown us in his Word the means that a man ought to attend to if he is going to see godly spiritual fruit on the vines of his family. Consider what Paul says to pastor Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:13-16:

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Now it would be a mistake to apply all of these things to fathers, since most fathers aren’t preachers. But consider what are the means by which God saves “both yourself and your hearers”: it is through reading, exhortation, teaching, and being immersed in scripture.

Can we say that a father may neglect these means of God’s grace and expect that his family will not suffer terribly? Do we not shake our heads when pastors neglect these things only to let their flock get attacked by wolves? So too must fathers give themselves diligently to these things if they wish to see God bearing fruit in themselves and their families.

Do not think that you can simply take your family to church for a couple hours a week and then forsake the means of sanctification in the home. Just as pastors who forsake the public means of grace destroy their flock, so do fathers destroy their children who neglect spiritual disciplines in the home. It might actually be worse because it teaches them hypocrisy—that the Christian faith consists of maintaining moral duties in public while neglecting personal holiness. It would be better for you to be a pagan than for Christ’s gospel to be so profaned.

Dads, please keep reading here!

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Triumphing through trials

Would you have perfect peace in life? Then lay hold on this doctrine of perseverance. Your trials may be many and great. Your cross may be very heavy. But the business of your soul is all conducted according to an “everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” (2 Sam. 23:5.) All things are working together for your good. Your sorrows are only purifying your soul for glory. Your bereavements are only fashioning you as a polished stone for the temple above, made without hands. From whatever quarter the storms blow, they only drive you nearer to heaven. Whatever weather you may go through it is only ripening you for the garner of God. Your best things are quite safe. Come what will, you shall “never perish.”

~ J.C. Ryle

Old Paths, “Perseverance”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 516, 517.

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The key to change

“The key to change is continually returning to the cross. A changing life is a cross-centered life. At the cross we see our source of sanctification (Ephesians 5:25-27; Colossians 1:22; Titus 2:14). We find hope, for we see the power of sin broken and the old nature put to death. We see ourselves united to Christ and bought by his blood. We see the glorious grace of God in Jesus Christ, dying for his enemies, the righteous for the unrighteous. We see our hope, our life, our resources, our joy. At the cross we find the grace, power, and delight in God we need to overcome sin. If we don’t come to the cross again and again, we’ll feel distant from God, disconnected from his power, and indifferent to his glory — and that is a recipe for sin.”

- Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, Ill.; Crossway, 2010), 127. (HT: FI)

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Important read: raising our families in Sodom

“Although we’ve noticed the steady, pebble-by-pebble crumbling of the family for decades, we’re now watching the landslide. We live in an age where society is no longer content to simply ignore the sanctity of marriage and the family—it attacks it with a vengeance. God’s established order for life has become a threat to this culture’s pursuit of sexual freedom.

Consider the global range of attacks on the family within the last decade. Back in 2000, Dutch parliament passed the first legislation in history that granted same-sex couples the right to marry. Following the Netherland’s lead were Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), and Norway (2008). Although traditional marriage was challenged much earlier in the U.S. (1993), social conservatives and moral majority leaders quickly enacted protective measures, prompting Congress to adopt same-sex marriage bans nationwide. The bans didn’t last long. Conservative “victories” were short-lived as judges began lifting bans and pushing Congress to amend the constitution. Since 2008, opposition against marriage and the family has intensified in America, taking many unsuspecting Christians by surprise.

The most recent example happened in California last week. On August 4, elected U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, himself a homosexual, carried out his own attack against the family. He used his judicial powers to overturn the will of California’s voters regarding Proposition 8, which proposed an amendment to California’s constitution, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Judge Walker declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Period. At this point, Judge Walker has won a temporary victory for the pro-homosexual agenda to redefine the fundamental concept of marriage according to their preferred sin.

Brace yourself, believer. You’re going to keep seeing this fire-storm of opposition against the family. Soon, many people will consign Christians who uphold a biblical view of marriage and family to the same moral category as white supremacy groups, and they’ll consider any effort to oppose homosexuality as a hate crime. In fact, it won’t be long before this blog post becomes a violation of law, under “hate speech” legislation. . . . .”

I would urge to read the rest of this article by Tommy Clayton (Grace to You)

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