Missio Dei Suburbia

Matt Chandler on Walking With God

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Matt Chandler:

In this short video Matt highlights two main elements of a personal walk with God:

1. Answer the questions "how will I do this?" and "when will I do this?" when it comes to Bible reading, prayer, & solitude. Most men never get that far, never make a plan, and their walk with Jesus is sporadic at best.

2. Keep a watch on what stirs or stifles your affections for Jesus. Matt carefully watches his heart to see what increases his affection for Jesus - and he makes more room for these things (for example, getting up early and going to bed early are personally important for him). He also looks for those things that steal his affection from Christ or deaden it, and intentionally removes those from his life (his example was that he has to not follow sports closely because he starts caring too much).

Monday Is For Fighting - Matt Chandler on Making War

Leadership Journal interviews Matt Chandler - one question that fits well with what we deal with in Fight Clubs:

LJ: What does warring against sin look like?

MC: Sanctification here at The Village begins by answering two questions. What stirs your affections for Jesus Christ? And what robs you of those affections? Many of the things that stifle growth are morally neutral. They're not bad things. Facebook is not bad. Television and movies are not bad. I enjoy TV, but it doesn't take long for me to begin to find humorous on TV what the Lord finds heartbreaking.

The same goes for following sports. It's not wrong, but if I start watching sports, I begin to care too much. I get stupid. If 19-year-old boys are ruining your day because of what they do with a ball, that's a problem. These things rob my affections for Christ. I want to fill my life with things that stir my affections for him. After a funeral I walked around the cemetery and found a grave of a guy who died when he was my age. I felt my mortality in that moment and it made me love the Lord. It really did. Some types of epic films do that for me, and so does angst-filled music.

We want our people to think beyond simply what's right and wrong. We want them to fill their lives with things that stir their affections for Jesus Christ and, as best as they can, to walk away from things that rob those affections—even when they're not immoral.

Read the whole interview here.

John Piper Interview With Matt Chandler

Matt Chandler is one of the best communicators I've ever been around. Here's an interview that John Piper recently did with Matt:

• Part 1 - Chandler tells his story up to about 20 years old.
• Part 2 - More on Chandler's story, through becoming a pastor.
• Part 3 - Chandler's thoughts on being a pastor, a Calvinist, and a Complementarian.
• Part 4 - Chandler and Piper finish up with some advice for pastors.

(HT: JT)

Driscoll Interviews Chandler