Dr. James Emery White

You’ve seen the articles:

“What every driver should know how to do.”

“What every parent should know how to do.”

“What every student should know how to do.”

The idea is that just as there are certain things we should know, as in facts or figures or cultural literacy, there are certain things we should also know how to do.

For example, every driver should know how to fill up their gas tank, check the oil, and change a tire (we’ll assume that because they have a license, they know how to drive – no jokes, please).

Yet such matters are different than knowing about cars.

What we’re talking about is the practical knowledge needed if you are going to drive one.

Got it?

Okay, now that we’ve got the set-up, here’s the question:

Does this apply for someone hoping to follow Christ?

This isn’t talked about much. We outline a great deal about what a Christian should know theologically (about Jesus, the cross, the Bible), and what they should feel personally (forgiven, blessed, united), but not much about what a Christian should be able to do.

The key word is “able.”

To my thinking, this is a huge hole in current strategies surrounding discipleship.

The discipleship currently in vogue is termed “formation.” Usually this means making our personal relationship with Jesus even more personal. In other words, Christ being formed in us.

Which is, of course, good.

But somehow we seem to miss out on the importance of learning how to do certain things.

It’s like the value of the old Foxfire books. I don’t know if you remember them, but they were a series of books designed to capture how to do certain things before technology causes us to forget. Such as,

How do you plant a garden?

How do you breed chickens and gather eggs?

How do you turn cotton into cloth?

How do you milk a cow?

I’m no prepper, but maybe I’m watching too much of The Walking Dead. But if we lose these basic skills, we lose more than we realize.

So here are five things every Christian should be able to do.

Not simply what they should do, think about doing, or want to do – but actually be trained to be “able” to do - before it’s gone as a lost art. All of the “Sample Teaching Series” listed below can be found on the Message Downloads page of ChurchandCulture.org.

1.       Read the Bible.

There is a difference between someone knowing they should read their Bible, even trying to read their Bible, and knowing how to read their Bible. Where should they start? How do they interpret it? How should it be applied?

Helpful Reading: Gordon Fee, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth.

Sample Teaching Series: “How to Bible”

2.       Pray.

Praying is not something most people know how to do beyond desperate 911 calls for help. Progressing through the great movements of prayer, such as adoration, or confession, or thanksgiving and supplication is a needed skill.

Helpful Reading: Bill Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray.

Sample Teaching Series: “Power Praying”

3.       Share their faith.

Whether it’s taking someone through the “Roman Road,” or a simple rendering of John 3:16, knowing how to witness is often absent in a Christ follower’s life. Even if it’s just being able to relay their “story” in regard to faith, being able to testify is essential.

Helpful Reading: Rebecca Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker.

Sample Teaching Series: “Sent”

4.       Manage their resources.

We all have been given the big three to manage: time, talent and treasure. The idea of comprehensive “stewardship” is often reduced to tithing. Not to disparage the importance of that discipline in any way, but it is making something radically comprehensive a bit truncated. True stewardship involves managing not only financial resources, but all of our material assets, as well as our time, abilities, skills and spiritual gifts.

Helpful Reading: Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle.

Sample Teaching Series: “MapQuest: Journeying to Financial Freedom” or “My New Year’s Revolution”

5.       Worship.

The act of worship is more than singing a song. It involves a preparation of the heart and mind, and then the engagement of prayer and Word, song and gift, sacrament and symbol. But how do you worship God in spirit and truth? If nothing else, people should understand how to embrace and engage the great sacraments of the church.

Helpful Reading: Ralph Martin, Worship in the Early Church and The Worship of God.

Sample Teaching Series: “Live Out Loud” (Baptism) and “Communion Weekend” (The Lord’s Supper)

I know, there’s more than these five we should know how to “do.” And I also know that a fulsome understanding of discipleship should never be reduced to training along these lines.

But still…

Don’t you think we all ought to know how to do at least these five?

James Emery White

 

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is The Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity (Baker Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on Twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

This is “Father’s Day” weekend.

Ironically, due to a series of circumstances, this will be the first Father’s Day that I will not be with three of my four children.

My oldest daughter and her husband just moved to Rochester, Minnesota, where he will be a physician in residency at the Mayo Clinic. My other daughter and her husband just accepted a position in youth ministry in Tampa, Florida after graduating from seminary. My oldest son, fresh from his own college graduation, is on a mission in Argentina.

(My youngest will have to take up the slack.)

Still, as a father of four and a father-in-law of two more, I feel my role much more viscerally than ever before – despite not having all of them around.

So what IS a father?

I’ve given that some thought of late.

When I gave my second and last daughter away through marriage, I spoke during her service about a father being someone who protected, provided, and cherished.

Once I did, I passed that baton on to her husband.

I stand by that description.

But there is so much more.

Here I offer a fuller list; not simply to those parents who still have primary care of their children (just so you don’t miss anything), but also as a reminder to those children who may have forgotten just how much your father brought to bear on your life.

So, having said that,

...a good father is…

...one who knows that children have only one love language – time;

…one who daughters want to marry, and sons want to emulate;

…one you know will protect you and defend you;

…one who provides everything you need (but not necessarily everything you want);

…one who is brave when you are scared;

…one who races you to the emergency room;

…one who teaches you how to treat a woman, and what you should expect from a man;

…one who cherished your mother;

…one who is stronger, and taller, than you (at least, at first);

…one who taught you how to swim, how to ride a bike, how to throw a ball, how to open a door for a woman, how to… you get it;

…one who spanked you when you deserved it, and you’re glad he did (but you never saw how much it broke his heart);

…one who taught you how to drive;

…one who set curfews;

…one who didn’t make a big deal of the things you thought he would, but did of the things that you know, now, mattered;

…one who either stayed up late, or got up early… just to see you off;

…one who answered your questions… one after another after another after another;

…one who said, “Oh, come on Mom, let ‘em do it”;

…one who finally said “okay” to the puppy;

…one who took you out “trick or treating”;

…one who drove you to your first day at school, your first day at college, and your first day at…;

…one who went with you to get your ears pierced (whether daughter... or son);

…one who let them braid his hair;

…one you could tell, “I kissed her!”;

…one who took you on trips;

…one who talked to you about that boy (or that girl)…

…one who paid the ticket;

…one who was a wreck walking you down the aisle, or bursting with pride waiting by your side at the altar for your bride;

…one who introduced you to God;

…one who, most of all, loved you so much he would have laid down his life for yours in a heartbeat.

And still would.

Happy Father’s Day.

From all of us Dads. 

You’ll never know how much we love you.

Or maybe, now, you will.

James Emery White

 

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is The Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity (Baker Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on Twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

You’ve heard of something being “cutting edge,” right?

And even more progressively, “bleeding edge?”

It seems to be everyone’s holy grail.  For example, Madison Avenue tries so hard to be “bleeding edge” so that something connects and goes viral that they can push the envelope to the point of it being returned to sender.

For example, some of the biggest names in marketing, including Ford Motor, General Motors, Hyundai Motor, Reebok and PepsiCo, have been forced recently to apologize to consumers who mounted loud public outcries against ads that hinged on subjects like race, rape and suicide.

The marketing gurus raced to the edge on such matters, but then fell off.

For example, PepsiCo found itself meeting with civil rights leaders and the family of Emmet Till — the teenager whose death in Mississippi in 1955 helped energize the civil rights movement — to try to quell multiple controversies involving its Mountain Dew brand and its over-the-edge racial attempt to market the soft drink.

Just like Madison Avenue, churches can find that being bleeding edge can cut against them.

A number of churches are tempted by the idea that being hip, and progressive, is the primary key to making inroads into the culture and reaching people for Christ.

But sometimes you can out-hip yourself.

Not simply by trying so hard to lead culture that you end up alienating it, but that you end up mirroring it.

For example…

It’s fashionable to bring up things that come between “culture” and Jesus, like gay marriage, and instantly trivialize the matter because you want to connect with culture.

I’ve actually heard people say, “If gay marriage is a barrier between them and Jesus, then let’s just accept gay marriage in the name of winning them to Jesus.”

But such maneuvers miss the larger question:  how did Jesus Himself feel about such things?  What did He make trivial and cosmetic, and what did He not?

But then they go further with a theology that seems to make what Jesus said, and only what Jesus said, the only source of theology.  If Jesus didn’t speak to something, then it’s not important.

But if you say, “Well, Jesus didn’t say anything about (fill in the blank),” are you then saying that if Jesus didn’t speak to it, it’s up to us?  Or that the rest of the Scriptures were not as equally inspired as the gospels?

If you weaken the rest of Scripture in the name of Jesus, you forget that we only have the teaching of Jesus through those very Scriptures.

So a word to those who feel that culture should dictate doctrine and morality: no, not when such doctrine or morality contradicts the Scriptures.  And not just the ones you select, but the entire canonical witness.

The goal is to be in the world, to be sure, but not of it.  Salt is meant to arrest moral decay, not affirm it or make it more pleasing to the senses.

In other words, being “bleeding edge” is not always best;

…sometimes it just means you’re bleeding.

James Emery White

 

Sources

“Trying to Be Hip and Edgy, Ads Become Offensive,” Stuart Elliott and Tanzina Vega, The New York Times, May 10, 2013, read online.

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is The Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity (Baker Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log-on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.

All of you reading this, male and female, have seen “porn.”

Don’t believe me?

Today 12 percent of websites are pornographic, and 40 million Americans are regular visitors — including 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds, who look at porn at least once a month, according to a recent survey by Cosmopolitan magazine (which, let's face it, is the authority here).

Fully 94 percent of therapists in another survey reported seeing an increase in people addicted to porn.

It has become a whole generation's sex education and could be the same for the next — they are fumbling around online, not in the back seat. 

One estimate now puts the average age of first viewing at 11.

Imagine seeing "Last Tango in Paris" before your first kiss.

So let’s move on.

The real issue is “What did it do to you?”

I know, you say, “Nothing.”

But that’s naïve. Or worse, self-deception.

Why?

Because it did more to you than you know.

Countless studies connect porn with a new and negative attitude to intimate relationships, and neurological imaging confirms it. 

Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, used MRI scans in 2010 to analyze men watching porn. Afterward, brain activity revealed, they looked at women more as objects than as people. 

The new DSM-5 will add the diagnosis "Hypersexual Disorder," which includes compulsive pornography use.

Let’s be less technical.

First, it exposed you.

You saw things through porn you never saw before, and wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Once exposed, you were never the same. You can’t erase images from your mind, much less your soul. It’s like cutting your way through a forest with a hatchet. As far as you go in, is as far as you will go the next time.

Second, it numbed you. 

Porn is like a shot of novocaine through your spirit. I know, you think it arouses you, but in truth, it deadens you. The more you see, the more it takes to titillate. Which means that the more you see, the more your natural spirit, sexual and spiritual, is killed.

After doses of porn, do you look at your spouse as your spouse again? Is your mind filled with desire for your mate, or with images from a computer screen? Has this made you more alive, or more deadened?

You know the answer.

Finally, it seduced you. 

It lured you in, promising emotional filling and sexual satisfaction. Did it give it? No. But it drew you in with the promise of it.

I think I’ve finally found the analogy for porn and our lives.

Porn is a drug.

Many drugs give you an awakening experience, such as LSD, that “opened” your eyes. But then the drugs numb you. Uppers lead to downers, good trips to bad trips, an escaped life leads to an avoided life.

Then came the addiction, which promised everything, but delivered nothing.

But you couldn’t escape. You needed the “hit.”

Friend, break it off.

Really.

Porn is decadent, despicable, and degrading.

The women are a fantasy. In reality, most were desperately wayward girls, and as adult women, are addicts and willing to do anything for money.

And if you are married, your wife is precious. Remember that she was once beautiful in your eyes, and is always in God’s.

Love her.

As the scripture says, “let her breasts satisfy you always.”

Take that any way you want.

But at the least, it means that you turn away from the seduction of pornography, and turn toward the reality.  

I have been married to my wife for close to 30 years.

Want a shocker?

She’s more sexually attractive to me now than ever. Sorry if that’s TMI. 

But it’s true.

Even more, I’m committed to us growing “old and ugly” together.

But it won’t be ugly.

It will be beautiful.

Why?

Because through my eyes, she is.

And I don’t let anything else color my vision.

James Emery White

 

Sources

“Online Pornography's Effects, and a New Way to Fight Them,” Holly Finn, The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2013, read online.

Editor’s Note

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, N.C., and the ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president. His newly released book is The Church in an Age of Crisis: 25 New Realities Facing Christianity (Baker Press). To enjoy a free subscription to the Church and Culture blog, log on to www.churchandculture.org, where you can post your comments on this blog, view past blogs in our archive and read the latest church and culture news from around the world. Follow Dr. White on Twitter @JamesEmeryWhite.