Missio Dei Suburbia

Christians and Politics

This will show up sometime in The Oconee Leader. I'm channeling two semesters as a political science major, involvement in two presidential campaigns on a local level, pastoring in the Bible Belt and thoughts from Charlie Drew's book, A Public Faith.

Christians are lousy at politics.

Thirty years of organized evangelicalism as a political entity has failed to bring about the kingdom of God or better days for all or much else besides the centaurian cross-breeding of conservative social policy and the Republican party. Evangelicals have become a constituency to be pandered to and for the most part we have taken the bit. Walk into almost any church in Oconee County this Sunday (including mine) and political conversation will sound like talking points from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly or any number of conservative pundits.

I believe that followers of Jesus Christ can and absolutely must walk down a new political road and become the kind of people who provide the resources for hope and change and unity that politicians of all stripes promise but simply cannot deliver. There are deep divisions in our country and in this county – to ignore them or to attempt to wish them away is both naïve and the height of tomfoolery. This is not a call to ignore our differences, only to put down the guns, knives, ninja stars and other rhetorical weaponry that so often accompanies political dialogue.

The Middle

Hey y'all - greetings from Room 228 at the Red Roof Inn in The Hill neighborhood of St. Louis. I've been up here for the LEAD Conference hosted by Acts 29 and it's gonna take me awhile to grab hold of the words to describe how good it was for me. I came up here to encourage our A29 planters and to help assess 25 new planters and there's no way they'll get more out of these past few days then I have.

Now that doesn't mean I'm not ready to get home to Lindsey and my boys and to all of you. I did want to check in with you and talk for a minute about something I've noticed over 12 years of ministry.

Something happens somewhere around the end of October and early November that I call 'The Middle' because it usually hits around midterms for students and is kind of a breather for people out of school before the holidays hit full force. Basically, The Middle is kind of a break, a respite, a siesta, a time out from the normal routine of life.

Now The Middle is a good thing - God created us to rest and for many of us, we've burned the candle at both ends long enough to feel like we're getting to the end of our wick. So I'm glad that we get to take a break, get away for a few days, recharge and get ready to finish 2008 on a sprint and not a crawl.

But something else happens during The Middle that jacks people up every year. For lack of a better image, we throw out the baby with the bathwater and in our attempt to take a break end up fracturing our own soul.

Here's how it goes down - you get a few days or a couple of weekends away and in your desire to mix up your routine, you drop everything including your life with God. So it's not uncommon for you to go days without time in the Scriptures and prayer and weeks without being part of a worship gathering. I have yet to meet a single person where that ends well for them.

So I know you need a break - I'm taking a week off from preaching in November to recharge - but I want to encourage and warn you with all the love I've got to not take a break from the rhythm of your life with Jesus. So if you're out of town the next couple of weeks, insist on showing up at a worship gathering on a Sunday morning wherever you're at - I know that's weird and nobody else does that but you're different. You belong to the King and he has a standing appointment to meet with you every week.

And if you think you can replace gathered worship with throwing on your favorite CD or listening to somebody preach on a podcast, I'm telling you that you can't. Personal worship or worship with a couple of friends is a good thing during the week but not on Sunday morning. The God of the Universe has set that day aside as time for you to gather with other believers to renew our vows to each other and to God as he reminds us of his love for us.

What I'm saying is that in ways we don't entirely get, we need that time together - to be with other Christians and to be with God. This is part of a normal rhythm of life and rhythmic irregularities are never good - especially when they can be avoided.

I've gotta pack and assess church planters from Regina, Saskatchewan and Columbus, Ohio so let's shuck the corn down to the cob - if The Middle takes you out of town this year, take five minutes to find a gospel-saturated church near where you'll wake up on Sunday morning (if you have a hard time deciding on somewhere, let me know and I'll help you out). Coordinate your travel schedule so you'll have time to gather for worship. Show up expecting to bless and be blessed in ways you can't imagine.

Will God love you if you don't show up? Yep - but you'll miss an opportunity he created just for you to hear and see his love for you.

Because I love you more than you'll ever know-
Matt

ESV Study Bible

My copy came today - and I strongly encourage you to pick up one for yourself or someone else.

Head over to the ESV Study Bible site and check it out.

Tim Challies reviews the ESVSB here.

Tim Keller: Divine Impulses

.design Instructions

Tomorrow night, we're hosting our next .design event. For those of you who are coming, you'll need to download the three documents below - start with the '.design instructions' file and go from there.

Download design_instructions.doc

Download designed.for.the.church.xls

Download designed.for.the.world.xls

If you have any questions, leave a comment or drop me an email or a Facebook message.