Girl's Night Planned To Remember Jill

From the Wyatt Baptist Church Website:

Attention young ladies (13-40ish). Were you impacted by Jill's life? Would you like a way to celebrate her devotion to Christ with other girls who knew Jill? On Friday night, March 20, you are invited to gather with other girls from Jill's life for a "Girl's Night" at Wyatt. The evening will begin at 7pm in the choir and include guest speaker Marian Jordan. Marian is the head of Redeemed Girl Ministries and was a childhood friend of Jill's. The night will also include special gifts for everyone attending and a dedication of the new girl's resource section of the Wyatt bookstore in memory of Jill. Please come and remember Jill while honoring Christ. Facebook users, click here.

Separation of Church and State

This subject makes me nervous. I'm a pretty opinionated person (for those of you who have never read any of my blogs) but this subject seems to be a very controversial issue. There are Facebook groups about putting God, Christ, and prayer back in schools, and a call for us to return to our Christian roots as a nation. There is a notion that because prayer came out of school, it precipitated our great moral decline. That somehow the ten commandments being prominently displayed on the walls of our public places will transform our culture.

All of these sentiments come from people who love their country and love their Savior. They put some energy into these types of efforts, but we must be careful not to waste our precious time on things that, while full of good intentions, are not transformative in nature.

Separation of Church and State is a very controversial topic, and one that is not simple. I disagree with the rank secularists who want to put "faith" in a category completely separate from reality. Some extreme secularists want to say that your "faith" should not inform your ideas about public policy and legislation, and therefore anyone whose faith informs those things, is automatically excluded from participating in those processes. This issue gets into matters of public education and in particular the teaching of evolution and or intelligent design. The issue of public education is another issue altogether, as are the other issues that separation of church and state influences.

I also disagree with some in the religious community who see no value in the separation of church and state, or at least claim that it is harmful. While the ideas of some of the rank secularists mentioned above are harmful to liberty and religious freedom in general, the separation of church and state as instituted by our founders was not at all. Think about the circumstances under which our country was born. We were escaping religious oppression when our forefathers came to this land. In their minds it was not a good thing for the state to decide what you believe or where or when you go to church.

The Founders of our country had the idea that while the church and the state should not mix, we should also be free to allow our religious views to affect our stance on matters of public policy.

I think separation of church and state (as stated by our country's founders, and as practiced and defended by early Baptists like Roger Williams in Providence Road Island) is an excellent idea. I believe the government has a role to defend it's people and protect us against outside threats, and to provide a system of justice so that criminals can be prosecuted in a fair way. The government's job is to protect our freedom and therefore I think government should strive to allow the maximal amount of freedom to it's constituents without those freedoms impinging on others. Freedom is what our country was founded on. That includes religious, economic, and individual freedom.

The government has a responsibility and so does the church. The church's responsibility is to be the prophetic voice in the culture. The church's role in a society like ours is not to try to force our views on others, but to proclaim, persuade, and plead with those around us to turn from their sin and trust in Christ. Trying to force them to participate in our religious practices will not transform, but alienate. One of the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity is that a Muslim can win converts at the tip of the sword, at the barrel of a gun, or at the proclamation of the state. A Christian cannot win converts at the tip of a sword, at the barrel of a gun, nor at the proclamation of the state.

The church is most effective not when we have the government in our pocket but when individual believers and churches take a stand in the public square and prophetically call other individuals to faith in Christ, and live lives that display that radical change that comes only through a vital relationship with Him.

I realize this is controversial, so if you have an opinion please feel free to share it, but try to be civil and gracious.

What say you?

When I Don't Desire God

I had someone email me the question about how to persevere through times of spiritual lethargy. To some degree we will all struggle with this daily. Until we are perfected we will have to deal with our laziness. The person who has been most helpful to me in this area has been John Piper. He writes often about it and even wrote a book called "When I Don't Desire God." You can read this online here.

Here is a little list of things you can do to fight for joy in God from Piper.

How Shall We Fight for Joy?

By John Piper January 1, 1995


1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.

2. Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly.

3. Resolve to attack all known sin in your life.

4. Learn the secret of gutsy guilt - how to fight like a justified sinner.

5. Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see God for who he is.

6. Meditate on the Word of God day and night.

7. Pray earnestly and continually for open heart-eyes and an inclination for God.

8. Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.

9. Spend time with God-saturated people who help you see God and fight the fight.

10. Be patient in the night of God's seeming absence.

11. Get the rest and exercise proper diet that your body was designed by God to have.

12. Make a proper use of God's revelation in nature.

13. Read great books about God and biographies of great saints.

14. Do the hard and loving thing for the sake of others (witness and mercy).

15. Get a global vision for the cause of Christ and pour yourself out for the unreached.

Love, Sex & Mammon

"We are not, we pray, on the verge of another Great Depression. Still, we see signs of economic failure all around us. Stores in the strip malls we drive past every day advertise “going out of business” sales. Those of us who are pastors know church members who have lost jobs, and we weekly see the faces of others who fear that the next pink slip belongs to them.

Some Christians, on the Left and on the Right, would tell us that economic matters are of paramount concern right now. They would assert that we’ve no time for the “luxury” of “culture war” discussions about “abstinence” or divorce or “gender roles” or other such matters. Instead, they tell us, we should concentrate on tax cuts or economic stimulus projects or Wall Street bailouts or home ownership.

They’re wrong."


In this article Dr. Moore (one of my teachers in seminary) talks about priorities for families. For the rest of this great article click here.

Why Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace Represent and Important Genre

In short:

The "worship wars" are based on the faulty assumption that the church is a producer and attendees are consumers, and that the job of the church is to please the consumer by producing what they want.

There is nothing inherently sinful about traditional worship with hymns, and there is nothing inherently sinful about contemporary worship with new music and lyrics. There is also nothing inherently sinful about preferences for types of music. There is something inherently sinful about members of churches drawing lines between themselves based on externalities that are secondary to the gospel. When we create new churches or divide old churches into groups based on a style of music or even a social group, we do damage to the gospel. One of the implications of the gospel is that we can look past our skin color, our age, our socioeconomic status, and certainly our preferences to love, worship with, and fellowship with other believers. When we raise preferences to be primary (something about which we will divide from other believers), we believe and spread the lie that Jesus and His gospel lacks the ability to bring us together under His name.

All of that to say that movements, like Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace represent, that make the gospel central to our worship should be applauded and supported by Christians who are concerned with the divisions that we are so vulnerable to in our churches.

Other thoughts?

Concert Tomorrow Night at Wyatt Baptist Church!

Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace at Wyatt Baptist Church in El Dorado.

You can get directions here

We also have a Facebook Page set up for the event where you can RSVP and find out more information about the concert.

Later, I'm going to post an article about why Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace's ministry is an important response to bad philosophies that are prevalent in our churches today.

The Third Brother

This is a very interesting way of thinking about the parable of the prodigal son. Tim Keller has written a book on this parable called "The Prodigal God" exposing this wonderful parable.

Oh to be a third brother like Jesus.

Read the article here.

Why We Shouldn't Resort to Violence In the Fight Against Abortion

I had never heard this question addressed until now.
Here is the link.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/47/3504/

I Know What You're Thinking....

"That's John Mayer!" Well, you may or may not be right. Come to Wyatt Baptist Church on February 24th at 7 PM and find out. Here is the Facebook page to RSVP.

The cost to attend will be a suggested minimum donation of $5, there will be a box at the door for those who have the means to give more.

Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace

This guy, along with the Indelible Grace band, will be playing at Wyatt Baptist Church on February 24th at 7 PM. This is one of my favorite bands. They take old hymns and set the lyrics to new music.

Visit the Facebook page and RSVP. If you are a youth leader or a pastor at a church, please tell your people about this. It is a great opportunity to bring together the younger generation and the older generation.

If you have questions please email me or call.

Thanks,