America’s Ugliest Export

Here’s a video from Christianity Today about the prosperity gospel in Africa.

(If you are viewing this in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the blog to see the video.)

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Preaching in Pretoria

Oh no. He’s refuting my sermon points before I even speak.  Jesus, there’s either going to be radical transformation today, or I’m going to be chased to my car.  I shouldn’t have worn flip-flops.

Those were my thoughts as the service began this morning at my friend Lordwick’s church here in a South African township, when John, the “emcee,” was up front.  He excitedly talked about enjoying a prosperous life as a Christian.   At one point he said, “If you are in trouble, if you are suffering, there is something wrong with you.  You need to get close to God.”

The demonic prosperity gospel has an enormous stronghold here in Africa. I wanted to confront it head-on.  I wanted God to do a mighty work and reveal the true nature of the gospel.  I knew that because of what I was going to say, suffering could come my way.

While I sat and listened to John’s pre-sermon ’sermon’ and the loud, keyboard-driven praise music, I prayed that God would come with power to preach boldly — even if the message would be unpopular.  I prayed for transformation.  And by God’s grace, I think we saw the beginning of transformation by the time we were done.

Let me be honest: after the service, I tried to avoid John.  But he found me (it wasn’t hard, there were only about 40 people, and more than half were children).  He grabbed me and shook my hand and said, “James, you have opened my eyes up to something I didn’t know about.  I thought when I have Jesus, the money should flow in.  But I realize that I wasn’t believing the real gospel.  Your message, it was the real gospel.”  I was floored.  All I could say to him was, “Praise God.”  I gave my manuscript to John, and over lunch, we talked about getting him more resources that will help him be shaped by the real gospel.

With this response, God answered my prayer.  All week I had been praying that God would open people’s eyes to see.  I can’t do that.  Yet, that is exactly what God told Paul to do in Acts 26:18, “I am sending you to open their eyes.”  How can we do this impossible thing? It is only by God’s grace that he works through us.  Anything is possible with him.  He is the one who says, “Let light shine!” (2 Cor. 4:6). And he did today.  In fact, he’s doing it everyday.

John was just one man, during one service, after one sermon, in one small, sweaty, school room in South Africa.  But it’s a testament to God’s grace and power.  It’s a testament to his kindness in answering prayer.  It’s a testament that he is the one who opens eyes, and that he uses nobodies like me to do it.

*               *               *

Thanks to Rylan for the pictures!  Preaching with a translator is never easy (this was my second time).  It’s difficult to get in rhythm because I have to speak very simply (he’s not a professional translator) and sentence-by-sentence.  But by the end though, Lordwick and I started to feed off each other.  Listen to or read the message.

Preaching This Sunday on The Gospel and Suffering

This past week a pastor that works at Beam Development Center kindly asked if I would be willing to preach at his church before I leave for home.  I graciously accepted.  I’ll be speaking there this Sunday, October 25 at 10am (3am American Central Time).

I’ll be preaching from Romans 5:1-5.  The title will be “The Gospel and Suffering.”  The health and wealth mindset reigns down here, and I would miss a great opportunity if I didn’t try to dispel this false teaching by speaking on what the Bible really says about God’s sovereignty and suffering.  As you finish reading this post, please take a minute to pray for these things:

• That God would say “Let light shine!” and that the blinding work of the devil would be overcome so that people would see Jesus and believe the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
• That God would work mightily so that the demonic “prosperity (false) gospel” would be exposed.  It is held tightly by so many poor, black, African congregations.  I want to preach “Christ and him crucified” and not a gospel of comfort and convenience.
• That God would speak clearly through me and the pastor, Ludwig, who will be translating my message.  It doesn’t take a linguistic expert to know that speaking with a translator is never easy.  And no matter what your view on speaking in tongues is, no one can deny that, in fact, I’ll be speaking in a tongue (American English) and Ludwig will be interpreting my message to the congregation’s native tongue (Tswana).  We know that the Bible says this is difficult and so we should pray for power to interpret (1 Cor. 14:13).  Pray for clear, powerful, Christ-centered exaltation of the word of God.

Thank you!

Are Conferences Good For Everyone?

Shaun Groves makes some important points about conferences and how they relate to the average Joe…or Andy.

Leading on Empty Review

Leading on Empty, by Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, is a book about ministry burnout.  It chronicles Cordeiro’s journey through burnout and what he learned on the roach to recovery

For the most part, the book is helpful.  The book gave me some road markers to watch for in the future.  Two of the more helpful chapters were on depression.  It was scary to read actually, because I’d be willing to bet that most people would be lying if they said they didn’t experience most of the symptoms at varying times throughout a normal year!

One of the underlying themes of the book was simply to have our priorities in order.  This seems easy enough, but how often do we forget our priorities?  Cordeiro asks the reader to do an exercise to narrow down the essentials of life.  He says to list what the most important five percent of your life is.  This could be anything.  He lists things like his relationship with Jesus, his wife and kids, and pleasing God with his ministry.  “We won’t be held accountable for how much we have done,” he writes, “but for how much we have done of what He has asked us to do” (p. 79).

Later, he asks the reader to write down a handful of things that drains you and fuels you — whatever they are.  He says, “Your soul is like a battery that discharges each time you give life away, and it needs to be recharged regularly” (p. 88).  I found this helpful to re-discover what I really enjoy doing.

The only criticism I have is that the book can sometimes have a self-helpish feel.  Cordeiro says that it isn’t a self-help book, but at times he’ll write something like this: “Your greatest source of motivation is finding untapped potential yet within you.  You see, your future is not what lies ahead of you.  It’s what lies within you” (p. 205).  Out of context, that looks like a Joel Osteen sermon quote.  In the larger context of the book, the reader will know that Cordeiro believes that the gospel is our only healing power — that a vibrant, growing relationship with Jesus is our only hope.  However, sometimes he fails to go far enough in being absolutely clear that this is what he means.  As a Christian reading a Christian book, I know what he means.  But will it be absolutely evident to other Christians?  I don’t know.  Our potential is within us, yes, but it’s in us only by God’s power.  Outside of the gospel we have no real potential.

Heroin Addicts, White Shoes, and the Gospel

My friend Tom and I, were walking with some friends to the Johannesburg Art Museum during our summer project last month.  Instead of going in, we stayed in the park where hundreds of South Africans and Zimbabweans were laying around on the grass.  We walked up to a guy who waved to us.  As we approached him, another man came to us and said, “I’m not even going to make up a story for you.  Give me your money.”

Now this was the first time that I’ve been in South Africa that I have been threatened to some degree.  I was a bit nervous.  A young kid started yelling to us, “Come over here.”  The man raised his voice.  He pointed to Tom’s shoes, “Your shoes are white.  Look at my dirty ones.  You have money.  Give it to me.”  It wasn’t hard to tell that this man was flying higher than a Boeing traveling over the Atlantic.  We took the kid’s advice and went over with him to talk with some others.  Later, we found out that the area we were hanging out in is a high-traffic heroin area.

Tom and I talked with heroin addicts about drugs, Jesus, and life in downtown Joburg for the next hour.  Talking with heroin addicts isn’t always the easiest thing to do.  There was a lot of drifting off and repetitious statements.  It was a circular conversation to say the least.

Thinking back on that interaction with the guy who wanted money, a Scripture comes to mind.  It’s Acts 3:6.  A beggar asks Peter for money.  Peter says, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”

I don’t know what kind of outreach is happening in Hillbrow from the local churches (I don’ t live in Joburg).  But I pray that there are Christians who go there to say, “We don’t have anything to give you.  But what we do have will satisfy your deepest longings the way money and heroin can’t.  His name is Jesus and he has the power to forgive sin and heal your broken life.”

Back to Normal

Our five week summer project in Johannesburg finishes up today.  The students will be headed back to the states this evening and we’ll be on our way back to Pretoria to start the final 97 day plunge of this 11 month trip.  It has been an exciting past month and the Lord, as always, did wonderful things.  I’ll share more in the next few days.

peace,
james

What Makes a Sermon Great

You don’t have to be John Piper or Mark Driscoll to preach a great sermon.  What makes a sermon great is not the fame of the preacher, the size of the sanctuary, or the volume of the speaker’s voice.

This could be a very long post, but for the sake of brevity, here are, at least, three things that a pastor should have/do to make a sermon great:

• Passion for Jesus so hearers leave wanting to know the Jesus you know.
• Faithfulness to the text in that you labor to explain what it means, instead of using the text to prove your points.
• Give hard challenges to holiness so that the information you gave them (theological, cultural, social, etc.) turns from information to transformation.

As I grow older (not that I’m old), I find that these three are usually intertwined, and number three is often a fruit of the first two.  I hear so many sermons that are more like a youth group talk on Wednesday night.  It might even be biblical theology, but it is weak sauce in conviction and does nothing to challenge a person to want more of Christ in their life.

Most weeks, what a Christian needs is the velvet hammer, not the teddy bear on the Downy Soft commercials.  Sermons today lack that extra something that makes me leave and think, “I’m awful and God is supreme.  What do I need to trust him for this week?  Where do I need to repent?  What about my life needs to be transformed by his grace?”

Remember that I am not a pastor, but as a weekly hearer and as an aspiring pastor, these are things I think are essential to the preaching ministry of a pastor.   Our end goal shouldn’t be “great sermons.”  Our end goal should be to make Christ look great by glorifying him with our words and lives.  However, pastors should be ready and willing, by God’s grace, to give their best on Sunday as they proclaim God’s word in order to edify and challenge God’s people.

What other things do you think are essential to a make a sermon great?

Are You an ‘Event’ Christian?

Tomorrow, eleven American students will arrive in Joburg for a Campus Crusade Summer Project.  We’ll be on the campus and in the community sharing and showing the gospel to the lost over the next month.

Whenever I think about a “short-term” missions trip, I almost always think “event.”  Christianity is not an event.  Evangelism, discipleship, and worship are not main attractions that we get excited for on a certain date and at a particular hour.  Rather, these are disciplines that should be interwoven into the fabric of our lives so that all of our life is worship, all of our interaction with believers is discipleship, and all interaction with non-believers is evangelism.

This will not always look like what your para-church ministry or your fundamental Baptist church says it should look like.  It should be what comes of the new life a Christian has been given by God.  It should look like Jesus and the Apostles in Scripture.  It should be dynamic and exciting and organic and, yes, even hard, but always fulfilling and joyful.

I love short-term mission projects.  I think they can be good.  On the other hand, they can be detrimental to a how a young person views the Christian life.  If the summer mission trip is the only place for evangelism and discipleship, there is something terribly wrong.  If the only way — dare I say, the primary way — a person understands missional mindset, outreach, and discipleship is through a tract, a schedule, appointments, or anything of the sort, I would be willing to bet that they have a warped view of what Christianity is all about.

My prayer for these eleven students is not for this project to be a great Christian event.  My prayer is for this next month to be a challenging time of asking themselves, “Is Jesus Christ really the supreme treasure of my life?”  The answer to that question will answer the next biggest critical question we must ask ourselves: “Am I an ‘event’ Christian who only gets excited about Jesus at concerts, services, mission trips, or conferences?  Or is my faith the fabric of my life so that it is lived out in the normal, the mundane, the regular, the common, and the everyday?”

Driscoll at Crystal

Mark Driscoll is preaching at the Crystal Cathedral this morning.  Crystal Cathedral has advertised themselves as “America’s positive television church to the world.”  We know that Driscoll is, well, a self-proclaimed pessimist (he says this only half-jokingly.)  What an opportunity this is for literally millions to hear the precious gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Driscoll’s message can be seen next weekend on The Hour of Power.

*  *  *

Related Posts:

• Crystal Cathedral Leader, Schuller, Announces Daughter as New Leader