Crying Out in Desperation

Rachel and I have done a lot of traveling over the past couple of months. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we have been in the car with a baby for a total of about 20 hours. If you have never been in the car with a baby for that long consider yourself blessed. She was great for most of the time, but when she was crying, it was not a fun time in the car.

As we were going down the road we were listening to a CD by Shane and Shane and Phil Wickham. One song on the CD is called "Heaven Fall Down". I have linked to it below. When this song came on, Lexi had been screaming for about 30 minutes. I was singing along and trying to get my mind off of the screaming baby in the backseat when I was struck by a part of the song I had never really paid attention to in the past:

We're crying out in desperation
Waiting now in expectation
We're crying out in desperation
For You

As I sang along to those words, that I had heard over and over again, they took on a new meaning for me. My little girl was in the backseat literally crying out in desperation and waiting in expectation that her father would comfort her and make everything right.

How many of us actually cry out to our Heavenly Father like that? When was the last time that we really cried out in desperation to God? I think that too often we think that we can handle whatever comes our way without having to rely on God. We are so self-sufficient that we don't cry out in desperation.

What was the last thing that you asked God for that you waited for in expectation? Do we believe that God will answer the prayers that we pray or do we just pray because we think it is what we are supposed to do as Christians? 

My prayer for this new year that we will all become more and more like my daughter, trusting that her father will make everything ok. 

"And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:2-4

$.50 worth of cornmeal

I was reminded today of a story I once heard about a southern plantation owner who left $50,000 (a great sum of money in the 1800s) to a former slaved that served him faithfully his entire life. A lawyer of the estate notified the former slave of his vast inheritance. Weeks went by and the former slave never requested any of his inheritance. Finally, they decided to send a banker out to explain to this man what his inheritance was and that he could draw out money any time. The old man replied, ‘Sir, do you think I can have fifty cents to buy a sack of cornmeal’? He could have asked for much more—but he died having only withdrawn 50 cents from a $50,000 inheritance.

In his book "The Gospel for Real Life" Jerry Bridges explains that we are just like that former slave. He had no concept of how much money $50,000 was and so he only asked for 50 cents. We have an amazing inheritance in the gospel, but we don't really understand it so we try to get by on as little as possible.

In Ephesians 3:8 Paul talks about the unsearchable riches that are available to us in Christ. I like that term, unsearchable riches. Paul wasn't talking about financial wealth, but about the glorious truths of the gospel. To use the figures from the story, what Paul is saying is that we have $50,000 available to us in the gospel, yet most of us are trying to squeeze out 50 cents worth. Why is that? I would argue it is because we don't really understand the gospel.

Tim Keller says the gospel is not just the ABC's of Christianity, it is the A-Z. We never get past the gospel to something else, we just get deeper and deeper into the gospel. I hope that you will make it a priority to understand the glorious riches that are available to us in Christ Jesus!

Rethinking Student Ministry

      I posted this blog a few years ago but wanted to post it again to see if the reaction is any different.  One of my professors from seminary wrote a blog post in which he said, "This generation wants meat. They are tired of silly events that have a little Scripture thrown in, or events where junk food is served up large and the Bible doesn't make the menu". I really feel like he has a point. My question to you is, do you agree with this statement? What are you looking for when you come to church on Sunday morning or Wednesday nights? Are you looking to just come and hang out or do you really want to be challenged?     

       In that same blog post Dr. Reid goes on to say, "There is a younger generation of believers who are tired of "do the minimum" Christianity. They want it straight, they want it real, and they want it now. If you teach the Bible, and if the teens you teach sense you genuiely love them and love Jesus, you can get right in their grills. In fact, you must. If however they perceive you as a smart aleck, or you stereotype them to the extreme, you will lose them. And you will never have a chance with unchurched  young adults". I have a heart and a passion for students. I want to see them come to a complete understanding of who Jesus is and what He did for them. 

      I am looking for feedback here. Feedback from students and parents. If you took the time to read this, comment on it and let me know what you think. If you think I am crazy, tell me. If you think that I am on to something here and are willing to come along side of me as we look to reach the students of Sumter, tell me! I want to hear from you!

   That same professor just wrote a new book called "As You Go: Creating a Missional Culture of Gospel-Centered Students". I recently bought the book and will be blogging my thoughts on it as I read it. I hope that it will sharpen me as a student pastor as I seek to teach students how to live a life that is centered on the gospel.

Be Near

I started this blog almost 2 years ago with the lyrics of a Shane and Shane song. They are my favorite recording artists to listen to. Recently I was listening to their song "Be Near" and was really convicted. The lyrics say, "be near, oh God, be near, oh God of us, your nearness is to us our good." 

That should be the cry of our heart. We should want God to be near to us. The problem that I see today is that people do not want God to be near because they would have to change the way they live. If we lived our lives as if Jesus was standing right there next to us at all times, I guarantee that we would not do a lot of the things that we do. 

The amazing thing is that if you are a believer, God in the person of the Holy Spirit is right there inside of you and transforming you every moment of your life. God is near! I challenge you today to make every decision as if Jesus was standing next to you and see how different you would live! 

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

One For The Parents

I believe that the best way to impact your students with the gospel of Christ is for them to see you excited about what God is doing in your own life. I have been encouraging your students to invite their friends to our events and that will continue when they get to school. I hope that they will invite their classmates to come and hear Jesus preached on a weekly basis and they will share their faith with those same friends.

My question to you is, do you show your children that Jesus matters to your everyday life? Are you talking to your children about the coworkers that you are sharing the gospel with or inviting to church with you? I really believe that I can talk to them week after week about living out their faith but if they do not see you living out your faith at home it will not mean as much.

I need you. Your children need you. I do not have the impact on your kids that you do and I need you to back what I am teaching them by showing them how it works in "the real world". Will you commit to making it a point to live out your faith infront of your children?


“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Take Me There

Hey I don't know about you but I can wait till the day
When I'll be with my Lord and everything is ok
And I'll be just like him so sin won't get in the way
Basking in his glory that's where I want to stay


A place where shadows give way to the real
And circumstances can't change the way that I feel
Joy in my Savior that Satan can't steal 
Because he's been defeated- yeah you know the deal
-Trip Lee "Take Me There"




I don't know about you but those lyrics are a cry of my heart. I cannot wait until the day that I get to see Jesus face to face and spend eternity praising His Holy name. This should be the way all Christians feel. This place is not our home. The Bible tells us that we are made for something far greater than this world. 


Where is your heart? Is it focused here or is it longing for something greater? As we grow in our understanding of Christ and what He did for us our longing will be to be with Him. Pray and beg God to change your focus from this world to the next!


If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4

Teens "Then" and "Now"

From: BestEducationDegrees.com

Behavior Modification

I am reading J.D. Greear's book Gospel at the moment. In this book he encourages the church to embrace the gospel, not just for the act of salvation but also for the act of sanctification. 


I have been thinking a lot lately and even talked through this with the high school guys on Sunday morning. Behavior modification, apart from a heart change, is not pleasing in the eyes of God. God is not pleased when we give money if our heart is not in the right place. God is not pleased when we come to the church building if our mind is not set on Him. 


We need a change of heart in order to please God. We need to remind ourselves of the gospel each and every day. 

You are part of God's Story

 Last night I began thinking about the fact that the people in the Bible were just ordinary people who God used to do extraordinary things. The 12 disciples that Jesus mentored were fisherman probably very young and may have even included some teenagers. They were not educated or anything special but Jesus chose them to change the world.

Even though the Bible is complete and what we do now will not be written in it, God's story is still not complete. Creation has happened, The Fall has happened, Rescue has happened for some of us, but Restoration has not. We have the amazing privilege to help usher in the Last Days when Christ will return! As the Story Guide says, "We are participants in the redemptive story God is proclaiming to the world."

How exciting is it that God has chosen to use us to reach the unreached? There are 2 billion people on this earth that have never had a chance to hear the name of Jesus. How awesome is it that you could be a part of telling them? If you can't go to them, how awesome is it that you could share the gospel with someone who could end up going to reach them?

The question to think about is this, are you living from the story you are writing for yourself, or are you living your life based on the story of God's redemption that is found only in Jesus Christ and the story that He has been writing throughout history?

The Gospel According to the Hunger Games

Here is a blog post from Dr. Alvin Reid, my Student Ministry and Evangelism professor in Seminary.

You can find other great blogs by him at http://alvinreid.com/. I thought this was too good not to repost on my own blog.

 When I say “the gospel according to the Hunger Games,” here is what I mean. Stories follow plotlines. Every movie Hollywood produces and every novel tells a story, and the story follows a plotline. Literary scholars tell us there are only seven basic plotlines. In the West, and in particular in pop culture, three matter a great deal:

One, a man falls in a hole and eventually gets out (epic, action films)

Another, boy meets girl and falls for her, it goes south, and then in the end everything works out for them (romantic comedies)

And one very popular storyline, rags to riches (Cinderella)

We love these stories. The reason: they follow a general plotline we all yearn to see happen.

1. Beginning: usually good, although sometimes (like rages to riches) it turns bad quickly

2. Dark Turn: misfortune, bad circumstances, a villain, etc, but things go badly

3. Rescue: a rescuer (in Disney this often involves a fairy godmother or magic) comes and saves the day

4. Happy ending: in virtually every case “they all lived happily ever after”

Does that sound familiar? Sort of like Creation, Fall, Rescue, Restoration.  Yes, the biblical plotline. Why do people want a happy ending? Because of what Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee”

This is beyond obvious in the Hunger Games (here is where I ruin it if you have not read it).  The story begins with a look into the life of the ultimate hero, a teenaged girl named Katniss as she describes her life in a new world in formerly North America many years in the future. From the start, something about this young lady compels you to know more, to understand her.

But very quickly you realize things do not go well for Katniss or her family. We see in specifically non-theological language the world of fallen humanity. The new world she finds herself in has been divided into 12 districts with a horrific “games” played annually. Each year, a young man and a young lady from the districts is “reaped” to participate in these hunger games, games in which these youth must kill the others until one survivor is left. Gruesome indeed. The prominent saying in the book is, “May the odds ever be in your favor,” i.e. may you never be chosen to represent your district. There is hope for something greater than the sordid world Katniss, her family and friends now endure.

This is the Lord of the Flies in reverse, because these games are premeditated by adult authority figures with a demented view of justice at best. The games intend to keep the districts in fear so they will not plan a rebellion. So the wonderful world has been shattered by the work of evil people, and youth are the victims. Depravity unleashed.

But there is a rescuer, the Messiah, well, in this instance the Mockingjay. I will let you read the story to see how it plays out if you must know.  But the ultimate outcome is this land called Panem is overthrown, the rebellion succeeds, and young people have been the key players in the story.

A perfect plotline for a Millennial generation consumed with justice issues. 

And, in the Epilogue, you find this rescuer named Katniss with her family, restored.

Creation. Fall, Rescue. Restoration. There is more: the sense of Providence, as Katniss from the most poor district actually became prepared for the games by her ability to sneak out and hunt, developng remarkable archery skills. Or the fact that she retains total unawareness at how winsome she is as a leader and how much hope she gives to others, her genuine humility being most overlooked in her personal self-awareness. Oh, there is also the stereotypical romance, showing the craving we all have for relationships. But my purpose is to demonstrate how a novel completely secular in vision, and filled with more than a fair share of violence, hearkens back to the very gnawing of every soul for a happy ending, for justice.

For rescue.

I am sure somebody will come out with some Christian subcultural version of a Hunger Games “Bible study” series. I would argue that the more you teach students (and all people) the wonderful narrative of Scripture, the bloody cross of an atoning Savior Who is our Rescuer at the heart, and how this affects all of life, the more they can see the truthfulness of it not only as they read their Bibles, but also as they read the literature of their times.

The Bible does more than offer tips on morality. It shows us reality, and how everything in life that we know to be virtuous and good and hopeful comes from the good news in the Word of God.

At the end of the third book Collins’ writes these thoughts of Katniss: “What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

This hope is why books like this matter to people. But the gospel matters so much more

Who is my neighbor?

Last night at Fuel we had a great reminder that we are supposed to show our love for God by the way we love our neighbor. Looking at Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 we saw that love for a neighbor involves more than just saying the words "i love you". 

After traditional Judaism missed two opportunities to help a dying man, a Samaritan stepped up to the plate and proved to be a neighbor. He sacrificed his own possessions and money to help a man he had never met. Jesus' listeners would not have missed the significance of what had just happened, and neither should we. 

The church today is looked at in our culture as being full of hypocrites. People who claim one thing but do not live it out. Jesus' point is simple. If we really love God, we must love everyone we come in contact with. Because we have been given mercy and compassion by Jesus when he died on the cross for us, we should show mercy and compassion to those in our lives.

What are some practical ways that you can show the love and compassion of God to those in your life? 

New Years Resolutions?

Now is the time of year that I hear a lot of people talking about what they want to change or accomplish in the next year. Most of the time these "resolutions" are kept for a few days or at most a few months. We live in a culture that most of the time does not keep commitments because we want to quit whenever things get hard. Whenever I hear someone talk about what their resolution is for the next year I always think about Jonathan Edwards.

When he was just 19 or 20 he wrote down a list of resolutions. These were not just things that he wanted to accomplish in a year, but these were lifetime resolutions. If you are looking for something that you want to accomplish this year, pick one and try your hardest to live it out. Better yet, challenge yourself that you are going to read over this list a certain number of times a week or month and actually stick to it. I really believe that with these things in your heart and mind you will be challenged to live for God every day.

There are a lot more but here are the first 10 put into modern english.

1. Whatever I do, I will do to give the most glory to God, and also for my own good and pleasure, as long as I live, no matter how long it takes to master. I also will fulfill my calling to do good to all mankind as much as I am able, no matter how much difficulty I face.

2. I will continually strive to come up with new ways to accomplish the things mentioned in #1

3. If I ever find myself becoming disinterested in keeping these resolutions, I vow to turn back as soon as I realize it, and do everything I can to remember and keep them.

4. I vow to never do anything, in thought or deed, whether it be a big thing or a little thing, except to do that which brings honor and glory to God. I will also stay away from those things that do not honor God as much as I possibly can, and whenever possible; I will try to put a stop to activities that bring God dishonor.

5. I realize the importance of the time I have been given by God. I vow to never lose one moment to worthless activities, but constantly think of ways to make the most of the time I have.

6. I vow to live my life with all the passion I can muster up until my very last breath.

7. I vow to never do anything that I would be ashamed of if I knew that I was facing imminent judgment.

8. I vow to live with the understanding that I am no better than the most wicked person to ever live. I vow to allow this attitude to remind me that I am constantly in need of confession and God’s mercy.

9. I vow to always remind myself that this physical life is temporary, and that death could come at any moment.

10. I vow, that whenever I experience physical pain, I will remind myself of those who are suffering for the sake of Christ, and also to remind myself of the great mercies of God which saved me from the justice of eternal punishment in hell. I do this to increase my compassion for those who need Christ and motivate me to share the message of the gospel to those that do not believe.

Conversion vs Christianization

I got to thinking today about the church. There are a lot of people who get up every (or almost every) Sunday morning to go to church. Most, if not all, those people would call themselves Christians and by all accounts may look like Christians. They are probably good, moral people who like the community that comes with being a part of a church. The real question is has that person been converted or merely Christianized? I am convinced that our churches and our culture today are full of people who at one time or another have been Christianized and never really been converted into new beings.

The gospel not being preached in many of our churches has led to people being Christianized and not really converted. Sermons about finance, friends, and morals apart from how those relate to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ do not produce new people but "better" dead people. A new person looks nothing like the person he or she was before.

Take a moment to think about your life before you were saved. Are you a completely different person than you were before? If not, I encourage you to think hard about whether or not you have been Christianized or if you have really been saved.

My goal for Fuel Student Ministry at CFB

"The goal of student ministry is to develop disciples who see the world as missionaries and live as missionaries. The goal is not to have a great event and have a lot of buzz. This means we do less student ministry that is based on the lowest common denominator. It means you score success in long-term disciples. It means to help students to grow and to develop their own plan for gospel impact now. If you help individual students to develop a plan for gospel advance in the context of your local church you will in fact help them to hear from God and be confident in their planning and thus to be better prepared about college, career, etc. This means your role may be less to be the Pied Piper to students and more a developer of leaders who can help students develop uniquely. Or, it could mean that your focus is not primarily to plan events or even to be a great speaker, but to help student see themselves as artists who were created by God to be remarkable in some way for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel." -Alvin Reid

This is my goal for the student ministry here at CFB. I want to see our student ministry grow. That does not mean that we need more people here. I want to see students grow in the knowledge of who God is and what He has done in their lives. If more people come and grow in that way, I will be happy. If less people come but they grow in that way, I will be happy. I want students who make an impact for the kingdom of God. I want to see students love God with all they have and realize that Jesus is better than anything this world has to offer. I am still praying that by October of 2012 we have 100 students at our weekly gatherings, not for numbers sake but so that they can all be learning about the life changing power of the Gospel.

My goal is not to be an event planner but a mouthpiece for God who speaks truth into the lives of the students that God has given me charge over.

Humbling

This video is extremely humbling. When I see what this amazing woman is doing to reach people with the gospel it makes me stop and think about my own life and how I am using it. We have so many excuses for not sharing the gospel but they all fall away when we see the lengths that she goes through to get the message of Jesus Christ out to the world.

I pray that you will take the time to watch this video and allow it to change the way you live for Jesus.

Sarah Coiner's Story from Andrew Fish on Vimeo.

Halloween Outreach

I mentioned during the Pastor's Minute yesterday that we are going to do something a little bit different for Halloween this year. Instead of having something here on our campus, we are going to invade neighborhoods in Cheraw with the gospel. One of my seminary professors said one time, Halloween is the only night of the year in our culture where lost people actually go door-to-door to Christian homes. I think this could be a great opportunity to reach our neighbors and engage in intentional spiritual conversations.

I was a part of something like this last year in my neighborhood in Durham. We had a table set up in the driveway and gave away free hot chocolate and water to the adults who were walking with their children. Members of our church manned the table and engaged people in conversation and gave each one of them a gospel booklet.

We had houses like this all over Durham and it was great to get to talk to people and engage them with the gospel. I really think we can make this a success here in Cheraw.

We will have an informational meeting tonight at 7:00 in the Street. I hope that you will be a part of this outreach and live as missionaries right here in our own town.

A Dry and Weary Land

I am currently reading through the Bible using the ESV Study Bible one year reading plan. In this plan, each night I read from several sections of the Bible but there is always a Psalm to read. I have always enjoyed reading the Psalms and this time is no different. Last night I read Psalm 63 and part of it really got me thinking about the gospel. Yes, the Gospel of Jesus. It is not just in the New Testament. Read what David said in the beginning of this Psalm.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

Is that not a great picture of the gospel? If we really believe that our lives have been changed because of what God did through Jesus did on the cross, wouldn't that be the way we respond to God? I long for this to be my daily response to God. It is clear that David had an incredible relationship with Him because he knows that God's love is better than life!

Is this the way you respond to God? Do you long for Him like water? Do you consider His love better than life itself? If not, I pray that you will consider what God has done for you and would begin to relate to God in that way.

Radical Student Ministry

I want to be a radical Student Pastor. I do not want to be a program director or a sanctified babysitter. I want to be a shepherd to the students that God has entrusted to my care. I pray big prayers for my ministry because I want to see lives changed for the glory of God. Imagine what could happen if the 25 or 30 students that are here for the majority of our times together decided to stand up and live lives that glorify God no matter the cost.

I have a request. I have begun praying that God would bless the Student Ministry here at First Baptist and that in one year...October 1, 2012, there would be 100 students who are involved in the activities here on campus. Would you join me in praying this prayer? I honestly believe that this can happen. Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still (Joshua 10:12-14) and it did. The same God that answered that prayer can answer this one as well.

I am not interested in numbers just to have people here. I want to see 100 students here praising God for snatching them out of the pit of Hell. I cannot do this alone. It will take the church stepping up and becoming involved in the ministry to students. It will take volunteers giving up their time to help out with our events.

Dr. Alvin Reid says in his book Raising The Bar, "Imagine what wold happen if thousands of young people in America served Jesus with the passion of a Bin Laden? Imagine if high school youth spent as much time planning to reach their peers with the gospel as McVeigh spent planning his bomb attack?"

I ask you the same question. Imagine what could happen if 100 students (or more) in Cheraw decided to serve God with the passion of Bin Laden or McVeigh. This is a radical passion and I would argue looks more like the passion the Apostles served God with than anything we see in America today.

Please join me in prayer that God would do a radical work in the Fuel Student Ministry here at Cheraw First Baptist for his glory and his alone.

Pray for the Nations

I am teaching through the book of Ephesians right now. Paul is constantly reminding his readers that there is neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ. He is urging them to be unified with one another. As I have been studying this text and teaching on it, God has been reminding me that this is still true today. When we come to faith in Christ, we are all brothers and sisters no matter what our background is.

I have started giving out a new nation for our students to be praying for on a weekly basis. This week we are praying for Afghanistan. 93% of the people groups of Afghanistan are unreached. God has a heart for the nations and the unreached and we as Christians should too. Only .05% of the population of Afghanistan are believers and the ones who are believers face unbelievable persecution.

We may not be able to go to that country but we can all join in prayer that God would move in a mighty way there and draw countless people to himself. Will you join me in praying for this Afghanistan this week?

A "Dangerous" Christian

Jim Elliot is one of the most well known martyrs of our time. One of my professors from SEBTS recently had a blog post of many of Elliot's most famous quotes. A couple really stuck out to me.

“We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are “harmless,” and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. We are “sideliners” — coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!”


Did you catch that? Far too many of us are content to stand on the sidelines of this war. We are mostly unharmed because we are harmless. We don't do anything that would make our enemy harm us because we are pacifists, not wanting to engage.

This makes me think about a few years ago when I was the leader of our group of kids at children's camp. We were playing paintball and had made a plan that on go, we were all going to go to different bunkers. When the horn sounded I ran for my bunker only to realize none of the children had run for theirs! They were afraid to engage and therefore harmless to the other team. Far too many Christians are this same way. We want to sit back in our Christianity and let others be in the line of fire.

I pray that we would become "dangerous" Christians. That we would be in the line of fire. This means that our lives will not be easy. This means that we may have some casualties. But we have been on the sidelines long enough when we have been given clear orders to engage the enemy and win souls to Christ. I close with one more quote from Jim Elliot that I offer as a prayer for myself and all who read this:

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another after facing Christ in me.”  Amen.