An Ode to the Jelly-Fish Christian

Anglican bishop, J.C. Ryle (May 10, 1816 – June 10,  1900), on the inclination of the church to compromise in his day.  He may have a thing or two to say to the church today as well.

The consequences of this wide-spread dislike to dogma are very serious in the present day. Whether we like to allow it or not, it is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and specially among young people. It produces what I must venture to call, if I may coin the phrase, a jelly-fish Christianity in the land: that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. A jelly-fish is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little, delicate, transparent umbrella. Yet the same jelly-fish, when cast on the shore, is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defense, or self-preservation. Alas! It is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, “No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.” 

We have hundreds of jelly-fish clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have not definite opinions; they belong to no school or party; they are so afraid of “extreme views” that they have no views at all.

We have thousands of jelly-fish sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or a corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint.

We have Legions of jelly-fish young men annually turned out from our Universities, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what is Christian truth. They live apparently in a state of suspense, like Mohamet’s fabled coffin, hanging between heaven and earth. Their only creed is to be sure and positive about nothing.

And last, and worst of all, we have myriads of jelly-fish worshippers—respectable church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ, any more than color-blind people can distinguish colors. They think everybody is right and nobody wrong, everything is true and nothing is false, all sermons are good and none are bad, every clergyman is sound and no clergyman is unsound. They are “tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine”; often carried away by any new excitement and sensational movement; ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old; and utterly unable to “render a reason of the hope that is in them.” 

Never was it so important for laymen to hold systematic views of truth, and for ordained ministers to “enunciate dogma” very clearly and distinctly in their teaching.”

-J.C. Ryle, Principles for Churchmen, The Importance of Dogma, pp. 97-98

(h/t Brett Davisson)

Plum Trees, Fruit Pretenders, and True Fruitfulness –

In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.

Matthew 21:18-9

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Matthew 3:8

On my way back to the house from this morning’s walk I passed through the new section of our orchard.  There it was in front of me…on the most slender and scrawniest of the new trees…an incredible crop of plums.  At the thickest part of its trunk this young tree is less than 1” diameter, and yet this stalk was laden with beautiful ruby-red plums the size of goose eggs.   I picked three and brought them up to the house.  Their flesh was juicy and sweet and as I ate the sticky syrup ran down my arm.  All told there were close to a twenty ripe plums produced by this scrawny and unimpressive tree.  The irony is that surrounding this tree are several dozen others, all of which have no fruit at all.  The other trees are far more impressive; they are taller, they have longer branches, and they have more verdant foliage.  They look the part, but there is no fruit to be seen.   Without knowing the fruit-worthiness of the smaller tree I would never have thought it would be the hands-down winner in plum production this season.  I would have selected one of the other far more impressive trees and eventually come up empty-handed.

Today, as I’ve been thinking about this single tree I think there is a parable to be learned…appearance has little or no bearing upon fruitfulness.  What often impresses us as life, health, and vitality really has no connection to true fruitfulness.  And, oftentimes, God uses the weak and unimpressive to manifest much fruitfulness.  These are those of whom the world is not worthy (Hebrews 11:38).  Consider the incredible life of Irena Sendler.  By every measure she was unimpressive.  Her life was largely lived in obscurity and a fawning media would never recognize her.  She would never win a Nobel Prize, as she was far too unimpressive and ordinary.  She was a commonplace sort of tree bearing fruit without accolades, pomp, and circumstance.  She had no agent or promotional handlers.  She would never do a stint on American Idol.  She did her most impressive work in secret and did it for those wouldn’t dare utter her name.  For Irena appearance was antithetical to fruitfulness.

The enemies of true fruitfulness in Jesus’ day were those who could put on a good show.  They were religious spinmeisters and by every appearance they had it all together.  They impressed by both outward show and word.  They wore the right clothes and talked a good game.  Jesus, in brutal honesty, called them what they were…decorated tombs.  They were adorned to make an impact while keeping their true identity hidden.  They had impressive language and religious jargon down pat; all the while inside they were full of dryness and death. For them the only thing lacking was the one thing that really mattered…true fruitfulness sourced from a right relationship with God.

Here’s the bottom line…God is unimpressed with showboaters in His name.  Any tree can look like a fruitful tree (at least until harvest comes!).  How we look and what we say mustn’t belie true fruitfulness.  To turn Jesus’ phrase…a tree is known by its fruit and not by its hardy trunk and lush foliage.  In the religious circles I run in the temptation to hypocrisy is exceedingly strong and especially seductive.  I know, because I’ve fallen for its supra-gravitational pull.  All I have to do is look the part and speak the language and I can fit in with the best of them.  It is much easier to wear the accoutrements and speak the jargon than to bear God-exalting fruit in unimpressive weakness and obscurity.  I’d rather live my life as emboldened front-page headlines than as a little-known footnote, soon forgotten.  I may be able to nuance theological minutiae, but the real question is whether I lay down my life to serve and love others.  I may dress in my Sunday best, but at the end of the day what do my kids say about what I’m really like?  No one cuts through the appearance of religion better than my own wife, kids, and those who are closest to me.  

 

The lesson of a stark and solitary plum tree in an orchard full of pretenders is this…in the unfolding of God’s unexcelled plan of salvation He will be glorified by the least impressive tree that bears much fruit.  In other words, in God’s grand drama of redemption it’s for this purpose that He has created us...we have been created, not to impress with verdant foliage, but have been created to have lives laden with God-exalting fruit.  

One who is wise has said that true belief is obvious, and so much so that, '...you will recognize them by their fruits.' (Mt. 7:20)

-DJM

7/21/13

Our Rock in a Hard Place -

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. - Psalm 46:1

The Christian life was never meant to be lived only while sailing smoothly on calm seas. What advantage would there be to the notion that God is a refuge if we were never under attack? Would we ever know that God deigns to be our strength if we had never known weakness? And what of this idea of Him being our present help if we’ve not experienced the immediacy of pending trouble? Life in a fallen world begets trouble all around. In the world, the flesh, and the devil a sinister triumvirate looks to wreak havoc upon the sons and daughters of Adam. Jesus, not unaware, nor unfamiliar, with every trouble we would encounter gives us hope in the midst of gathering storms. His encouragement to His disciples is one of tenderness as the storm clouds approached. Their trouble was immediate anxiety. His word to them was "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”(Luke 12:32). Imagine the relief that those four words brought- “Fear not, little flock”. This is real hope. Fear must flee at the word of the Good Shepherd. The world, the flesh, and the devil must bow at His command. Anxiety must give way to hope. Even death must ask permission. God can be trusted, because He is God. He is the absolute sovereign and therefore He can be our trustworthy refuge and strength. One has only to look at the Cross to see an assurance of God’s immediate help in trouble. That trouble that was far more vexing than anything the world, the flesh, and the devil could conjure up has been mitigated by the Son’s obedience to His Father. This is amazing love. This is the love of immediacy that binds frightened, troubled and anxious sheep to their Shepherd. It is my hope that you are resting in the Shepherd’s love, even when you see the storm clouds gather.  He is not unaware, He is our very present help.

- DJM

A Few Lessons in Church Planting from an Eastern Washington Graveyard -

For the last several years we have been in the halcyon age of church planting.  Everyone wants to be a church planter and it seems that for a long time every Sunday there was a new street level sandwich board advertising a new church with a trendy name.  The names are not descriptive of something substantive; in fact, out here in the Northwest we even have, The Coffee Church(!).  Moderately able worship leaders are in high demand and often move from one trendy new church to another.  During our church plant we even had musicians solicit us for a place on the team.  For them there was no philosophical or theological inquiry; simply a tight worship set was the draw.

Today we finished up a 5-day vacation with family in Idaho.  On our way home and just outside of Walla-Walla we got off the beaten path and drove to the Whitman Mission.  Every time I visit here it has a significant effect upon me.  If you don’t know the story of the Whitman Mission let me give you a little history.  In 1836 several Presbyterian missionaries made their way along the Oregon Trail and settled near Walla-Walla.   Of those who made the trip were Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa.  They married on February 18, 1836 and the day after their wedding they left for the Oregon country.  They were convinced that they were called to bring the gospel to the Indians and to help them by educating them.  The Whitmans committed their lives to loving and serving the natives in the area.  Their life was not an easy one.  Their first winter was spent in a very small hut, and the second winter their home was flooded out and they had to move to higher ground.  Their only child Alice Clarissa was born in 1837.  At age 27 months she drowned in the river just outside of their home.  Their lives were characterized by privation, hardship, and backbreaking toil.  In 1844 seven children arrived at the mission that had lost their parents in the journey across the Oregon Trail from Missouri.  Marcus and Narcissa adopted them as their own.  Known for their hospitality, their home was place where those headed west often stopped, but they never lost sight of their first priority to bring the gospel to the native Indian tribes in the area.  On April 2, 1847 Dr. Whitman ended a letter this way,  he said,  ‘…we live at all times in a most precarious state….’  And then on  November 29^th, 1847, 11 years after they had begun their mission, Marcus, Narcissa and 11 others were killed and another 47 were taken hostage.  In a terrible misunderstanding and tragic circumstance the Whitman mission came to an end, and for almost forty years Presbyterian missions came to a halt in the Pacific Northwest.

Here are a few lessons from the Whitman Mission church planting efforts that likely will not be taught in college missiology classes:

1)    Sometimes signing up for ministry is akin to signing a death warrant.  Often there is no forward progress of the gospel without significant suffering and this should not surprise us.  After all, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

2)    Sometimes the people God sends you to serve will not let you out alive.  It is an interesting tension biblically, but if you look at the life of Jesus there was a great deal of difficulty imposed upon His ministry by those closest to Him.  For another eye-opener do a little research on Jonathan Edward’s last days at Northampton. The servant is truly not greater than the master.

3)    The most thankless job in church planting is that of the church planting pastor’s wife.  Untold grief, tears, and hardship are sown by the church planter’s wife as she serves alongside of her husband, and God records every one.

4)    Bi-vocational church planting is profoundly difficult.  It requires a rare skill-set and often comes at an incredible cost to family and well-being.  Marcus Whitman was both a doctor and a missionary, and even wore several other hats as he toiled at the mission for 11 years.

5)    There are casualties in church planting. Sometimes this means reputation, sometimes relationships, sometimes our very lives, but anything worth something will require everything.  We are fools to think of church planting lightly, particularly knowing the gravity of what’s at stake.

6)    Sometimes it is impossible to count the cost beforehand.  There are some tasks that God calls us to that we would run far away from if we knew what they would cost us.  God gives grace in the moment and not beforehand.

7)    Church planting success cannot be measured in the here and now, but can only be accurately considered in light of eternity.  Sometimes success looks like failure and sometimes failure looks like success.  In the eyes of some the Whitman Mission was a colossal failure, and as a church planter it was a strong temptation to look at numerical growth as the yardstick for true success.  This is a fool’s errand.  Wood, hay, and stubble, as opposed to true gospel fruit, will be made known at the day of the Lord.

Walking around the Whitman Mission today I was reminded of Jesus’ words in John 12:24:

‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’

I’m thankful for men and women like Marcus and Narcissa.  They paved the way for missionaries and church planters that would follow.  It may not be pretty as we consider the incredible cost, but they’ve showed us the inestimable value of bringing the good news.

-DJM

6/10/13

The Absolute Priority of Being Deeply Rooted in the Word - Advice for Church Planters from John Piper

Growing a Church Without a Heart for Doctrine

-John Piper, cited from Counted Righteous in Christ, pp. 22-23

To begin with, the older I get, the less impressed I am with flashy successes and enthusiasms that are not truth-based.  Everybody knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right location, and the right schedule you can grow a church without anybody really knowing what doctrinal commitments sustain it, if any.  Church-planting specialists generally downplay biblical doctrine in the core values of what makes a church “successful.”  The long-term effect of this ethos is a weakening of the church that is concealed as long as the crowds are large, the band is loud, the tragedies are few, and persecution is still at the level of preferences. 

But more and more this doctrinally-diluted brew of music, drama, life-tips, and marketing seems out of touch with real life in this world - not to mention the next.  It tastes like watered-down gruel, not a nourishing meal.  It simply isn’t serious enough.  It’s too playful and chatty and casual.  Its joy just doesn’t feel deep enough or heartbroken or well-rooted.  The injustice and persecution and suffering and hellish realities in the world today are so many and so large and so close that I can’t help but think that, deep inside, people are longing for something weighty and massive and rooted and stable and eternal.  So it seems to me that the trifling with silly little sketches and breezy welcome-to-the-den styles on Sunday morning are just out of touch with what matters in life.

Of course, it works.  Sort of.  Because, in the name of felt needs, it resonates with people’s impulse to run from what is most serious and weighty and what makes them most human and what might open the depths of God to their souls.  The design is noble.  Silliness is a stepping-stone to substance.  But it’s an odd path.  And evidence is not ample that many are willing to move beyond fun and simplicity.  So the price of minimizing truth-based joy and maximizing atmosphere-based comfort is high.  More and more, it seems to me, the end might be in view.  I doubt that a religious ethos with such a feel for entertainment can really survive as Christian can survive for too many more decades.  Crises reveal the cracks.