Ministry Values

As I think about the ministry values that animate my ministry, three things come to mind. Not coincidentally, these are the things about which we talk a lot at Covenant Seminary.

First, the Word of God. All of our ministry must be centered on God's Word--and especially, we must have confidence in the ordinary means of grace in which, during corporate worship on the Lord's Day, the Spirit uses his Word to transform our hearts. All our praying and preaching, our singing and use of the sacraments, are biblical and "bibline." This is not because the Bible itself is a talisman; rather, because it is God's Word--in coming to God's Word, we come to hear and respond to God himself.

Next, the Grace of God. As we come to God's Word, we hear the King speak, telling us that there is nothing we have that we did not receive; that his steadfast love is undeserved and freely given; that it is all of grace from the beginning of our lives to the end. The same grace that drew us to Christ is the same grace that justifies us which is the same grace that sanctifies, adopts, and preserves us to the end.

Such love frees us from fear--the King, who knows us completely, who knows us by name, loves us, sings over us, and delights in us for his glory's sake and for his name's sake! What a king this is! How it should enliven our worship--the King we serve loves us despite ourselves! How it is should enliven our service--what we wouldn't sacrifice for such a King and for such love! In fact, the grace of God should produce hope and joy in our hearts: hope--that earnest expectation that our King will care for us to the end; joy--the strength of God and delight in God that severs the root of sin and frees us to serve him all our days.

So, finally, the Kingdom of God. Because the King, by his Word, bids us to come into his presence and sustains us by his means of grace, and because he showers us with grace upon grace, we are freed to enter into his world as agents of the new creation, signs of what the new heavens and new earth will look like. We are freed to serve in our callings as pointers to the mercies and kindness of God and freed to serve our communities as agents of what God is doing in his world.

Only as we keep these three linked together--God's Word, grace, and kingdom--will we reflect Jesus' priorities for ministry and sustain the work of God in our generation: by his grace and for his glory!

First Calvin Post

You can read what I have to say about Calvin's Institutes, 2.218-2.2.21, here. I'm posting all this week at Ref21.

Sabbatical Update

Well, I've not gotten very far. Thus far, I have had five dedicated writing days since February 1. I did spend a week doing research last week at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. Right now, For a Continuing Church has most of the first four chapters in draft form now and portions of two others (out of ten chapters). The other projects are yet to be begun.

Part of the problem is that I haven't been home much in February. I went to the Evangelical Seminary Dean's Council in Dallas (where I was elected vice-chair); preached at Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis; and then went to Richmond. Today, I'm heading to All Souls Presbyterian Church in Champaign, IL.  And in between, I preached at Grace Presbyterian Church in St. Charles, MO, and Covenant Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. So, it has been a busy month. 

Next week, it is my turn at the Ref21 "Blogging the Institutes" site. I had messed up trying to post using the scheduler feature and for a few minutes discovered that my blog posts actually debuted early. Jeremy Smith rescued me and now the posts will appear in their proper order and time. 

Toward a New Job Description

Drawn from a meeting that I had to sit through, I thought these descriptors might work for a new job description:

• Generative truth-telling
• Collaborative inquiry
• High educational strategery (okay, I borrowed that from Will Farrell)
• Redemptive subversion

Working on a Dream

Well, I've spent a week with the new Springsteen album, Working on a Dream, in heavy rotation in my truck and iPhone. I really, really like it. In some ways, it strikes me as the flip side of Magic. While the latter album focused on the slight-of-hand ways of the Bush administration and had an amazing number of dark lyrics bouyed by infectuous pop tunes, this new album is far more hopeful.

To me, the album's book ends and the middle song set the theme. "Outlaw Pete" tells the mock Old West tale of a ruffian who tries to change, but finds it is impossible: as he kills Dan the lawman, Dan "whispered in Pete's ear 'We cannot undo these things we've done'/You're Outlaw Pete, You're Outlaw Pete, can you hear me?" The middle song, a blues-style romp called "Good Eye," notes the human propensity to sin and failure: whether at the baptismal waters, with riches, or in marriage, the tag line comes through: "But I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun." The final song, listed as a bonus track because it was not recorded by the E Street Band, "The Wrestler." After comparing himself to a one-legged dog, among other things, he sings, "These things that have comforted me I drive away (anything more)/This place that is my home I cannot stay (anything more)/My only faith is in the broken bones and bruises I display." The brokenness of life is the reality that shapes everything else.

So, I said it is more hopeful; this doesn't sound like it. The hope comes, I think, in the relationships and simple pleasures that undergird life in this world and make it possible: when we've lost all the other bets we've played, love ensures a lucky day ("My Lucky Day"); even when our dreams feel far away, we keep working on them and hoping that someday they will come ("Working on a Dream"); love provides ballast for this life and the next ("This Life") and serves to make even aging endurable ("Kingdom of Days").

The song that doesn't fit, although I keep thinking about it, is "Queen of the Supermarket." I think the juxtaposition of the supermarket--"a wonderful world where all you desire/And everything you've longed for is at your fingertips"--and the check-out girl is meant to play off the world of endless possibility against the personal effects of love extended (As I lift my groceries into my cart/I turn back for a moment and catch a smile/That blows this whole place apart). There is a gratituious f-bomb in this line, which drives me nuts because it seems unnecessary, although one reviewer suggested that its use was meant to be bracing and to "blow apart" our consumeristic approach to relationship. That might work; I still wish he didn't use it.

I find Springsteen to be one of the more profound songwriters of our generation. The fact that he can craft some incredibly catchy pop hooks to go with his thoughts makes him special and enjoyable. I'd highly recommend this album; taken with Magic, these two albums rank among his best since Born to Run.

The Bobosphere

You should check out The Bobosphere, the new blog of Bob Flayhart, senior minister at Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He breaks down the new U2 single, "Get Your Boots On," scientifically, as we say.

Sabbatical Begins

Today, I began my sabbatical. Please do pray for me over the next six months: I have several book projects that I'd like to complete, but three in particular that need to get done or nearly done.

For a Continuing Church: Southern Presbyterians and Fundamentalism. This is the main project; I've been working on this since 2002 and have shared parts of the project on this blog. Essentially, it is an academic book (although I hope that doesn't mean unreadable) that looks at the development of conservative dissent (or fundamentalism) within the PCUS that eventuates in the creation of the PCA in 1973.

Jonathan Edwards on the Christian Life. This is for a series that Crossway will be doing over the next couple of years. I believe that one can do the entire theology of Edwards by focusing on what he says about religious affections and the resultant practices of holiness. We'll see if I'm right.

Grace-centered Leadership: A Framework for Leading Wherever God Puts You. This is a book that Bob Burns and I are co-authoring; it basically looks at leading from two frameworks--one that roots it in the biblical storyline of creation-fall-redemption-consummation; another that roots it in the grace-motivation of indicative-imperative. The book will be less jargoned that this short description, I assure you.

On Being Presbyterian PowerPoint

Many people have emailed me for my PowerPoint slides for On Being Presbyterian; now you can download them for free here.

Struggle with Church History Dates?

Here is an interesting solution--a ten-minute (!) church history rap. Not much for either rap or pedagogy, but Duncan has a very cool accent.

Inaugural Bibles

An interesting interactive piece at Wall Street Journal; why has no one used an ESV Study Bible? Maybe because it'd break the arms of the Chief Justice to hold it for the entire vow! But the president of Ghana used an ESV Bible...

One other thing: is it more than ironic that at his first inauguration, Bill Clinton chose Galatians 6:8: "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life"?

Bono, op-ed writer

A brilliant piece in the New York Times on Frank Sinatra, the New Year, and the power of music.

Simple Minds

Last night, my wife and I took a trip down memory lane and worked our way through the 50 songs on my 80s playlist on my iPhone. One of the things that struck me was how good the band Simple Minds was.

They came to US notice with their 1985 song, "Don't You Forget About Me," which was on the sound track from the movie, "The Breakfast Club." They followed that song with their album, "Once Upon a Time," which had three big songs on it: "Alive and Kicking," "All the Things She Said," and "Sanctify Yourself" (which I tried to use to argue to my parents that they were a "Christian" band).

The band probably appealed to me for the same reasons that I liked U2 and the Alarm during my teenage years: big anthem songs with big beats and big hair. Still, it was fun to listen to those songs again.

Cribbage

When I was a freshman at Liberty University, squeezed into a space about the size of my office here at Covenant Seminary with three other 18 year-olds, there was one thing that helped me maintain my sanity: cribbage. One of my roommates, Ambrose Lovely from Maine (great name), taught me how to play; throughout the fall and winter, we would stage all-day tournaments on Sautrdays (and cardplaying didn't get in the way of our studying, because we both pulled 4.0 that year).

I hadn't played cribbage much after my freshman year until the other day when I downloaded a cribbage app for my iPhone. After reteaching myself how to play, I've become a cribbage fanatic again (which will become apparent to my wife when a very nice cribbage board shows up at the house next week, with brass pegs instead of the stupid plastic ones that break in the pegs). I taught my oldest son how to play (as well as my daughter; she is very lucky with cards, which is to say she beat me) and we've been staging mini-tournaments on these cold, gray St. Louis evenings.

It has been a while...

...since I've posted. For me, three weeks is a long time and really, when you get right down to it, the fall was pretty sporadic. Of course, that is an indication of how hectic things have been. So, one of my resolutions is to make sure I get on here more often--my goal is 12-15 posts a month. Being on sabbatical this spring will help that, I'm sure.

I know that I'll be posting on the Ref21 Calvin blog: Blogging the Institutes. My first posts will be somewhere early in Book 2; so I think they'll show up in March! As part of this (in addition to the fact it is Calvin's 500th birthday!), I decided this year to read straight through the Institutes, which I've never done. I'm doing my ten pages each morning and am now up to 1.18.

One of the things that has struck me afresh is how the Institutes really are what Calvin (and what I in class) say they are: a manual on piety. Over and again, Calvin preaches, cajoles, directs, persuades and urges; he calls on us to "lift your hearts up" to heaven in order to mediate on the grace and glory of God. He wants us to be changed through a genuine love of God our gracious and loving father. It has been quite refreshing spiritually to do this.

Meeting Haiku, no. 2

A friend sent me this; we were both in the same meeting:

Meeting running long
Having no Blackberry
Envying Sean Lucas.

Best Practices?

Meeting Haiku, no. 1

Sitting at table
wondering why I am here
at this long meeting.

New Springsteen Cometh

My preppy name

Apparently, my preppy name is "Ives Waverley Truxton the Second; but most people know you as Kip." I do have to say that I always wished I had a cool nickname--like Skip or Kip or Chip...Sean is a hard name to do much with.

The Penchant for Hyperbole

Have you noticed how our public commentators have been engaging their penchant for hyperbole? For example, in the Wall Street Journal last week, an article opened with the question: "let's play this week's favorite parlor game: are we in another Great Depression?" There was a similar question asked in the USA Today this past Monday. By any measure, isn't a bit hyperbolic to compare our current financial recession (with its 6.1% unemployment) to the Great Depression (with its 24% unemployment)? When a quarter of our population is unemployed and in soup kitchen lines, then it would be appropriate to ask the question.

Likewise, with Obama's election to the presidency, the questions are being asked: is this the grand realignment, similar to 1980 when the nation turns in a particular direction? Does this reflect the new "liberal" mood of the nation? Again, this strikes me as hyperbolic: while the electoral college vote for Obama was significant, it wasn't any more impressive than Bill Clinton's thumping of an incumbent president in 1992. That year, Clinton carried Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Colorado (which also went for Obama); but also 2008 Red States Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Likewise, Clinton went in with large majorities in the House (258 seats) and Senate (57 seats); very similar to Obama's majorities (254 and 56). And yet, the past eight years demonstrated that the country can swing from side-to-side from cycle to cycle.

The real question then is why all the hyperbole (by meaning, hyperbole conveys extravagant exaggeration)? I've wondered whether this is our culture's hype machine--the only way to truly grab people's attention any more is to hype something as bigger or more significant than any other moment in time. Is it because we are so bored? Because it is so difficult to get our attention? Because we need to sell media time? Because we have a tendency to run to extremes? I don't know--but it strikes me that with the anxiety that so many feel these days, that perhaps we are engaging our penchant for hyperbole a little too much and revealing something about our hearts and our hopes.