High-Sounding Nonsense

I remember one summer taking a biology class at a local university. I had called my husband (who was my fiancé at the time) crying, and I mean “ugly crying,” because I was so affected by one of my classes. My professor, who was an atheist, was presenting what she believed was scientific evidence that there could not be a God, and why the notion of a created earth was absurd. I said to him, “Dave, you should have heard her...it was so cunning, she appeared so convincing. If I didn’t know the truth for myself, I would feel ridiculous for believing what I do.” My heart broke for the other students, for my professor, and for the hundreds of thousands that would hear similar lectures.” I have been having a similar experience over the last few years related to notions of mental and emotional health. Man! There are some VERY CONVINCING philosophies out there. There are also some VERY CONVINCING half-truths and watered-down versions of these philosophies floating around in every environment including the Christian church. My heart breaks. At times I feel a little helpless seeing how many around me accept these messages as forms of increased health, insight, and enlightenment. They SOUND truthful, they SOUND good...but they are laden with the promotion and glorification of self, and the consequent de-throning of the absolute authority of God over our lives. “YOU are the author of your life,” “Follow YOUR dreams,” “YOU are enough,” self love, self direction, self, self, self… honestly, sometimes it makes me want to scream. You see, not that long ago, I believed these lies. I was so blinded, I led groups of struggling women to these very lies with the promise that they would be healed of emotional distress if they loved themselves more. It’s a slippery slope for sure. It sounds beautiful, it sounds so positive...it is leading us to destruction. There IS such a thing as truth...and this is NOT it. This, my friends, is simply “high-sounding nonsense.” I am personally SO grateful for God’s salvation and consequent sanctification. Paul’s letters are some of my favorite scriptures to read. Paul speaks with conviction as one who had previously “bought into” the laws and false philosophies of the Jewish culture. One who KNOWS how convincing these deceitful philosophies are because he was once the one doing the convincing in his opposition of Jesus Christ and the church. Here are a few passages that help me on my journey to abandoning the deceitful philosophies I’ve bought into:

“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.” Colossians 2:6-8 NLT

“You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that! They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.)” 2 Timothy 3:1-7 NLT

I know for me the reasons that I bought into these messages is that I was starved for someone to tell me that I was worthwhile, and that I was loved, and accepted. I falsely believed that I had to take control and ownership of that loving and accepting of myself because who else would? The thing I’m most grateful for in my ongoing sanctification process is that I am increasingly getting to know a God who loves and accepts me and sees me as more worthwhile than I could EVER see myself. When we abandon the love of ourselves, we gain more than we could ever imagine...experiencing the love of a Savior.

—Lindsay Thompson

Tomorrow's Freshmen

It was a big, crowded auditorium at Duke University. The line was long and restless as we waited to march single-file through the metal detectors, past the watchful security team. We were warned we couldn’t bring even a purse inside with us.

Now that presented a problem.

But I am ever resourceful. I tucked my tissues in the sleeve of my dress, smiling to myself as I did it. I was becoming my grandmother! She always seemed to have something stuffed somewhere on her person. And she was a pro at that Kleenex thing.

“Are you planning on crying?” my sweet, ten-year-old granddaughter, Kate, asked as she curiously watched me slipping the tissues in. I explained to her that I needed them for my allergies, but, honestly, we both know me better than that. Before the first familiar strains of Pomp and Circumstance had floated up to the vaulted ceiling, I was blubbering all over the place.

The same thing had happened a couple of weeks earlier here in NJ.  

I have had two lovely granddaughters, Isabella and Ana, grandchildren #5 and #6 respectively, graduate from High School this spring. One is a homeschooler, one a public school student. One is from the north, one is from the south. One is a ballerina, one a pole vaulter. Both are the first-born daughters of my two sons. Both are leaving home for the very first time, scholarships in hand, to attend colleges at the end of the summer.

So I blubber.

For some reason, the idea of these two being on their own, away from their nurturing and protective families, has deeply affected me. In my heart, I know it is time. They are not foolish girls. I know they are wise…and I know they know and trust their heavenly Father Who will be with them wherever they are. I know that too. I think I just don’t like change, and this is the first step in their growing away from us.

But I think it’s even more than that.

I keep thinking about the world they are so innocently and expectantly entering. There are so very many things they don’t know that they don’t know. I keep wishing I could somehow prepare them, warn them, or protect them. I wish I had the right words...

Then yesterday, quite by accident, I stumbled on this article on John Piper’s Desiring God website. It was authored by Matt Reagan, a campus outreach director. He is a youth guy and he is a bit over the top…that comes with the territory. And I suppose his ideas could be considered radical or even harsh, but I think his viewpoint is worth the read. It resonated deeply with me.

I pulled a few more hankies out of my sleeve.

It’s what I want my girls to think about. It’s what I want ALL of us to think about— whether we are wide-eyed graduates or sappy old grandmothers. There’s much to consider. Read on.

Class of 2019, to graduate from high school is an achievement requiring a significant mixture of effort and circumstances, and millions have not experienced that. You have both worked and been given a gift. Let one of the themes of your upcoming summer be gratitude to God.

In the same breath, I would advise you to make another focus of this summer to prepare yourself for the transformative season of life to come.

As a veteran college minister, I watch students like you roll onto campus each fall, and I am reminded that the educational system you are leaving has shaped your view of the world.

You have given yourself to the establishment of a reputation in academics, athletics, and extra-curriculars, all while building a sparkling résumé. Your parents, teachers, and friends likely have played their part in upholding that pattern of life. Your identity in that world inevitably runs deep.

It’s time to die to that reputation. All of it.

The apostle Paul was an unbelievable student. He was born into a tradition of high-achieving scholars, and he took the opportunity to dominate the classroom, leaving his classmates in his wake (Galatians 1:14). But when God intervened, Paul died a beautiful death. He died to every boast he had previously carried — every line of his résumé. He was presented in Christ with a superior righteousness, one offered outside of himself, and he took it gladly (Philippians 3:4–9). I beg you to do the same.

And I beg you to mean it. I can only assume most people are like me in this, but I am a sly smuggler of alternative identities. I give lip service to “all I have is Christ,” but my anxious thoughts after interacting with people betray the smuggle struggle. I want them to know my résumé. I’m not convinced in those moments that I am perfect in the eyes of my heavenly Father and adopted into his family. The real death to reputation hurts like crazy (all deaths do), but the result is freedom like you’ve never known. 

As you die to what has defined you and find your life in Christ, here are six other pieces of counsel I regularly give to any freshman heading to college.

1. Arrogance is not a sign of maturity.

Ministering at the college campus, I am regularly struck by two contradictory truths about rising freshmen. On the one hand, they are starting arguably the most formative season of their lives, at least as far as spiritual development is concerned. On the other hand, they are regularly convinced that their convictions are fully formed.

So, I have some advice for you, high-school graduate: learn to learn. To be led. Remind yourself that you’re eighteen. Try not to believe every voice that has seen you attend youth group or read your Bible through high school, the voice that says you’re ready to pastor your home church. I would contend that, almost without exception, every college freshman believer is a toddler in the faith, whether they prayed a prayer at four years old or accepted Christ on a Young Life retreat after their senior summer.

Arrival is not a reality for the Christian anyway. If you can learn the depth of your sin and need, Jesus will become a greater treasure than your own maturity, and you will become humble, teachable, and relatable.

2. Beware the allure of the 4.0.

(I know, moms and dads everywhere are cringing.) “Be excellent in your studies” may have been your comprehensive framework for a Christian student’s life in high school, but there is a raging perfectionist in some of you that needs to die. That 4.0 will whisper to some of you constantly, but often at the cost of your peace, your sleep, and your relationships with God and others.

Unless you have some massive kingdom vision that requires perfect grades (cue rampant rationalizing), they really aren’t that big a deal. The point of college is to teach you what you need to know so that you might contribute to society (and in the case of every believer, to bring the gospel to whatever area of society that is). So, go to class, learn the material, wonder at God as he reveals himself in every subject, and calm your hyper-focus on grades.

3. Make future wealth less of a priority.

As God led me through my own experience in college, I realized that I needed two big deaths. The first was to the aforementioned reputation, but the second was to financial security as a primary factor in my vocational decision-making.

God showed me that if I was going to step toward him in my major, and eventually, my career, I wasn’t going to do so because I loved money. No one can serve two masters. He tells us clearly, “Keep yourself free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for [I] have said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5).

4. Make your future decisions as a missionary.

I meet so many freshmen who have already established a ten-year plan. They’re quick to mention their pre-med or pre-law major during orientation week. They typically don’t understand their own gifting or desires yet, though, much less their overarching kingdom purpose.

Prestige and money are powerful motivators, but the joy of showing the living Christ to those who desperately need him whips them cold. Ask God and your fellow believers to show you how you might best be used to help people taste and see the goodness of the gospel. I’m thinking here of a swath of vocations, sacred and secular alike, but all in the spirit of Philippians 1:21–22:

To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.

Figure out how to get equipped for that vocation, and get cracking.

5. Make your present decisions as a missionary.

The people who need Jesus aren’t only waiting for you in the far reaches of the world or out in the secular workforce. They are your roommates, classmates, and teammates. They lie in bed worrying about their reputations. They question the goodness of God because of their experiences with “Christians” or loss of loved ones. They grasp and claw for life. Don’t be so consumed by your personal pursuits toward the future, academic and otherwise, that you forget to look up and notice the gospel opportunities on campus.

6. Enjoy freedom from the pattern of the world.

From time to time, I briefly entertain the thought of walking away from Christ into a full embrace of sin and self. I let myself run down that road for a moment, considering all its ramifications. I perform this counterintuitive exercise to cement what my time on the college campus has clearly demonstrated: following Christ is sanity. A “normal college life,” beholden to the approval of others, laden with anxious perfectionism, and insatiably pursuing worldly satisfaction, is insanity. There is no clarity like biblical clarity, no security like gospel security, no friendship like Christian friendship, no freedom like that of the saved sinner.

So, you have much to look forward to in the days ahead. May it be more Christ-filled than anything you’ve experienced yet, and may many know his glory through you.

So, here’s to your college years, my sweet girls. May you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. May you find in Him everything you need as you secure your unique place in the Kingdom. May He bless you with His peace and His Presence all the days of your lives. I love you so very much.

I hope you, dear reader, find the joy and satisfaction of a life lived for Him too. May God bless your personal pursuit.

Now it’s time for more tissues…

—Eileen Hill

He Must Increase, But I Must Decrease

John 3:30  He must increase, but I must decrease.

A very good friend of mine and I have lunch occasionally. We usually get into some great discussions about life and all the things that seem to be beating us up. We always share things about our involvement at our churches, the people that are affecting our lives, the spiritual battles. There was this one discussion where my friend and I were discussing something, and he said this phrase that has rocked my world: “I never want to stand in the way of the Glory of God; In all that I do, I always want to point people to Christ.” Wow. This immediately caught my attention, and I started thinking about what that really means. Am I ever guilty of this? Both of us are musicians on worship teams, and the conversation was about being in front of a church and bringing glory to ourselves, playing things up or basically showing off. We both know that if we don’t actively “point to Christ” or “use our talents for Him in worship” when we are in front of a church, people would see us mixed into the worship and lose sight of Jesus. Oh, that’s just not good at all. 

So, off on a journey through the Bible to challenge this statement. There are a lot of references of those pointing attention to self in the Bible. And quite a few who humbly pointed attention to Christ. But one day after digging through passages and not doing too well with an answer, I spoke to Pastor Chris before a practice and he says, “The opposite of that sounds like John the Baptist.” Yikes, this was a “slap my forehead moment.” I had been looking for the example of someone standing in the way of God’s work or even taking credit for what God has done. I should have been looking for the exact opposite.

In the early part of John, while at a place where people were being baptized, John the Baptist was asked by the Jews (John 3:25-30), “Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified—behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!” John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

The original statement does hit the mark, just not in the exact way John the Baptist said it. The idea of “not me, but Christ” is within it.

How else could this be applied? Do we reflect Christ in all that we do? And all the time, not just on Sunday? Do people around us see Christ in our conversations or do they see us? When we are angry, do they see Christ working in us or do they see us? When something has obviously changed in our lives by God, do we give Him credit for what He has done or just keep it quiet?

Jesus must increase, I must decrease.

Have a great day!

—Brian Rainey

Song Singing vs Worship Leading

Years ago, I attended a Methodist Church for many years. I had gotten connected there in an interesting way back in my twenties. My friend’s mom was getting married. She asked if I would play the organ for her wedding at the church, a small country church with a big organ. I didn’t know how to play an organ at the time. Piano yes, keyboard yes, but not a pipe organ. It was the kind with all of the foot pedals, stops, etc.

I said, “Sure, I will!!” What was I thinking? All I knew was I better start practicing. So I called to see if someone would let me into the church so I could “practice,” meaning, LEARN HOW TO PLAY AN ORGAN! Someone kindly let me in on a Saturday morning. As I was sitting on the big organ bench, finally getting up the nerve to touch the keys, the pedals, fiddle with the stops that made all different sounds with the tones, I began to play the Bridal March. Soon, the church secretary looked in the backdoor near me and said “Oh, we need an organist! Do you want the job?” Well, she was talking to a struggling twenty-five year old that needed money and could play one song on the organ, so I said “SURE!” The rest was history. I learned how to play the organ and became the praise team leader. But, I am convinced I was just a song singing leader. I didn’t know the first thing about worship leading. There is a big difference.

Our Pastor then retired and a new guy was hired. He was so different. He looked like a surfer dude. Long hair, younger. And he slowly challenged the norm at our church. I noticed that he put his hands up in the air when he sang. This made no sense to me. I was the paid music director and youth director, so he and I worked closely together. I remember he would question what music I was listening to. It definitely wasn’t worship music. He would ask, “Lo, when you listen to your music, does it lead your mind closer to Jesus or farther away?” What a great question. Usually my answer was, “Jamie, my music if fine!” But, eventually I was willing to admit that it wasn’t fine. The music I filled my head with didn’t move me closer to Jesus. It would put my brain and heart in a place it didn’t belong, sometimes leading me into temptation. Slowly but surely, I eliminated that kind of music from my life. I also remember a retreat he took the leaders on up at Harvey Cedars. He passed out a survey, and one of the questions was about how we follow Jesus. One answer was I AM A RADICAL follower of Jesus. I thought that was crazy, so I didn’t check it. I didn’t understand what that really meant. I had no clue what I was missing either. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. That was also true of the “hands raised up thing during songs at church” as well. I didn’t think it took all of that. I thought it was kind of weird. I just didn’t know what I needed to know. So I finally asked him, and this is what he taught me. He said the reason he raised his hands was because he was communicating with Jesus. People raise their hands for many different reasons in church.

I am now someone who rarely keeps my hands down and here is why. I learned that when I used to go to a church service, I did not really expect anything from God. I was going because I grew up being trained in that is what we do on Sunday morning.

I expected the doors to be open; I expected to sing some songs; I expected the song leader to lead us.

I expected the Pastor to talk and talk.

I expected to sing one last song; I expected to have to put some money is some basket; I expected to then leave. Church was done and now we get on with our day and have fun. It was like a weekly appointment. I was good for doing it. That was my experience of church. There was no Jesus in that, only me religiously doing something.

My understanding has totally changed, Thank God! I also have to thank Pastor Jamie Bagley for allowing God to use him to speak into my life. It was huge! He was my first mentor in worship training.

Now, I don’t consider it church anymore, but a worship service.

I expect God to meet me there in corporate worship. When the worship leader tells me to stand, I MOVE from the back of the seat to the front. I cannot stand well so I sit, but no matter. I MOVE. I follow their leadership.

I expect music to play, and I will worship Jesus. It is a conscious choice to direct all of my attention to Jesus, not even the screens up front with the words. They are only there for those who don’t know the words. If you know the words, you shouldn’t have to look at the screen. Direct all of your attention onto Him. Close your eyes if you want. I raise my hands to communicate with Jesus. When my hands are straight up in the air, it’s my way of declaring victory with my Jesus. If my hands are out with palms up, it’s usually because I’m surrendering or I am once again in a desperate place and need Him to fill me up again and again. My body language communicates with my God throughout the worship service and throughout the week. I focus on how beyond grateful I am for ALL HE HAS DONE for me. The words of the songs resonate with me because they remind me again and again WHO HE IS, HOW GREAT HE IS, HOW MIGHTY HE IS, HOW HOLY HE IS.

AND I WANT TO GIVE HIM THE PRAISE AND WORSHIP HE DESERVES!!

As I see it, the only other options would be for us to not engage with singing or just sing the song because we like it. Singing a song doesn’t involve much. The focus is usually on us. We like it so we tend to really get into it, and we shout out our enthusiasm for the band or the people singing it with us. We sing the words and then we are done, without much engagement.

I expect the Pastor to preach a message that God has anointed. I ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me and to help me understand what He, God, is saying to me through the Pastor.

I expect to give God 10% of my weekly paycheck. This is not because I am just supposed to give MY money to the church but because God owns it all, including the money HE has allowed me to earn. God commands me to be a good manager of everything He has given me to manage, including finances. Me tithing is me communicating to God that I love Him, I will obey Him and I will give freely and joyfully to advance His Kingdom.

I expect to sing one last song some weeks. I move forward if God directs me to, and I always pray that the Holy Spirit will move the people forward that He is calling forward.

Song Singing vs. Worship Leading…you, my friend, are your own worship leader. If you choose, command your soul to worship...even when you don’t feel like it!

Amen

—Lois Robinson